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User:Mi5FiRE

2021-07-29T08:33:33Z

Mi5FiRE: Created page with "Still try'in to figure out how to properly use this lol"

Still try'in to figure out how to properly use this lol

Tarn (G1)

2021-07-29T08:30:24Z

Mi5FiRE: Fixed wording, grammatical errors and typos

{{factions|decepticon}}
{{disambigm|Tarn (polity)|Glitch (disambiguation)}}
:''Tarn is a [[Decepticon]] from the [[2005 IDW continuity|2005 IDW portion]] of the [[Generation 1 continuity family|Generation 1]] [[continuity family]].''

[[File:MTMTE Tarn Alex Milne.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|He kills you with culture... and also ''violence''.]]
'''Tarn''' is an eloquent [[Decepticon]]. He enjoys nothing more than playing beautiful [[The Empyrean Suite|music]] as he waxes poetic quoting ''[[Towards Peace]]'' and other philosophical works by [[Megatron (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Megatron]]. He tends to indulge these pleasures at the same time he's using his [[outlier]] ability to cause the [[Decepticon Justice Division]]'s latest transgressor's spark to self-destruct. The leader of the D.J.D., Tarn epitomizes the mentality of the team. He is beyond zealous in his devotion to Megatron's cause, going so far as to emboss the Decepticon [[insignia]] onto his own faceplate. No traitor, no coward is capable of escaping his team.

Despite appearances, Tarn is a mess of contradictions. Viewing himself as the central pillar of the D.J.D., he can be as brutally violent as any other Decepticon, but views himself as a bureaucrat and his team as his administration. He believes his actions are entirely justified, yet sometimes his thoughts are a constant stream of self-denigration. He works hard to run a tight but fair ship, and is not above taking in an open-minded, needy stray. On the other hand, for all his thoughts of sophistication and control, Tarn can go from affable to life-threatening at the least provocation. His addictive tendencies have led to him burning out his original [[transformation cog]] years ago, and his reliance on the power-enhancing [[Nucleon (substance)|Nuke]] can lead to his losing himself to the lust for violence. And have no doubt that while he may try and convince himself otherwise, Tarn is a truly sociopathic murderer. Ultimately whether Tarn is a monster or not is irrelevant. His utter devotion to the Decepticon cause means he will ensure the fear of Megatron is put into any that would consider abandoning their noble goals.

{{quote|If you want to break someone—mentally, physically, emotionally—wait until they're happy. Let them live and love and thrive. Once they recognize the value of a life well lived... THAT'S when you move in for the kill. Because you can't take anything from someone who has nothing to lose.|Tarn|"[[The Dying of the Light Part 2: The Sun in Flight|The Sun in Flight]]" teaser}}

==Fiction==
===2005 IDW continuity===
{{First|[[How Ratchet Got His Hands Back|''More than Meets the Eye'' #5]] (shadowy image); [[Rules of Disengagement (issue)|#7]] (full appearance, as Tarn); [[Shadowplay, Part 2: Patternism|#10]] (as Glitch)}}

[[File:Ratchet glitch shadowplay.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|Glitch is [[Wolverine (Marvel)|the one with the claws]].]]
'''Damus''' was [[reproduction|forged]], born an exceptionally powerful [[Point One Percenter]] {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} and an [[Outlier (group)|outlier]] who possessed the ability to render non-sentient machinery inoperative by touching it, but with one drawback: the power hurt him every time he used it. Before the [[Great War (G1)|war]], Damus attended the [[Jhiaxian Academy of Advanced Technology]] where they possibly attempted to analyze his brain-wave patterns and kept his outlier status hidden from the [[Senate]] and [[Functionist Council]].

At some point, he crossed the [[Senate]] and was subjected to [[empurata]]: his hands and head replaced to mark him out as someone to shun. After that, to tie in with his power, he started to call himself '''Glitch'''. {{storylink|Shadowplay, Part 2: Patternism|Patternism}}

When [[Optimus Prime (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Orion Pax]] devised a plan to steal a bomb disguised as the [[Matrix of Leadership|Matrix]] from [[Nominus Prime]]'s corpse his [[Shockwave (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Senator friend]] recruited Damus, [[Windcharger (G1)|Windcharger]], and [[Skids (G1)|Skids]] from the Academy to participate in the heist. Damus's part in the plan was to deactivate the deflector beams above the [[Primal Basilica]] and despite a slight hitch when Damus accidentally jammed Skids's grappling hook by touching his arm, the plan succeeded. {{storylink|Shadowplay (Conclusion): An Intimate Beheading|An Intimate Beheading}}

Following Shockwave's capture and brainwashing by the [[Senate]], the Outliers stuck with Orion Pax and aided him in defending a [[hot spot (phenomenon)|hot spot]] in [[Alyon]] from [[Sentinel Prime (G1)|Sentinel Prime]]'s forces. By this time Damus had gotten replacement hands and learned to use his power from a distance, utilizing it to break down [[Elite Guard]] vehicles from afar. With help from a group of time travelers from the ''[[Lost Light]]'' of the future, the group took down a weapons platform sent to irradiate the hot spot's [[spark]]s, then had their memories of the travelers wiped by [[Chromedome (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Chromedome]].

[[File:PermanentRevolution-Backwards.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.2|[[Keith David|"And what would you have your Justice Division do?"]]]]

During the whole affair, Orion Pax recommended reading Megatron's treatises around Glitch: "powerful stuff," he said. Considering Megatron's stated reasons for converting him to the Decepticon cause, we can only assume that he listened a little too well. {{storylink|Elegant Chaos Part 1: All Our Parlous Yesterdays|All Our Parlous Yesterdays}}

Exactly how and when Damus joined the Decepticons is unknown, but Megatron would later claim he had deliberately "corrupted" Tarn to hurt ''someone'' and prove a point. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 3: Your Fierce Tears|Your Fierce Tears}} Damus joined early enough to be at the beginning of Megatron's march across Cybertron. Rebuilt under the supervision of [[Lobe]], {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} Damus's power and endurance was considered by [[Prowl (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Prowl]] to put him on the same level as a [[Phase Sixer]]. {{storylink|Remembrance Day}} His mask was taken as a sign of Decepticon supremacy but, at least so he told himself, it was really so nobody would notice when he closed his eyes around Decepticon brutality. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} In one particular battle during the war, Damus tussled with [[Thunder Clash|Thunderclash]]. {{storylink|Shining Armor issue 3|Shining Armor #3}}

[[File:SpeakMemory2-results.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|"How's it hanging? ... Oh... oh. That dude is ''really'' hanging there. My bad." "Stop it, you uncultured mech. You came here to report, not make puns."]]

Damus became commandant of [[Grindcore (prison)|Grindcore prison]], where he became associated with "[[The Empyrean Suite]]", playing it at maximum volume to drown out the screams of the prisoners he executed via smelting. {{storylink|Speak, Memory: Part 1}} In this, he was trying to deliberately bastardize a song composed by [[Eucryphia]] to celebrate [[Prima]] and the [[Citadel of Light]]. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} One of his prisoners, soon after the prison's smelting chamber had malfunctioned, was his old comrade Skids. Damus bargained with Skids to fix it, telling him it was a "teleport chamber" and fifty prisoners would be released from Grindcore for this, and was able to con Skids into thinking that he could be trusted. Skids was relaxed enough around Damus to take praise genuinely and push for more freed prisoners later.

In the end, Damus sent all fifty prisoners to the "teleportation chamber" and cruelly forced Skids to watch as it was used to execute a group of prisoners, including Skids' cellmate [[Quark]], melting them down into raw materials for use in the creation of [[M.T.O.]]s. Damus deliberately used the event to cripple Skids' religious faith. {{storylink|Speak, Memory: Part 1}} {{storylink|Speak, Memory! (Part 2)}}

After Damus became leader of the D.J.D. as "Tarn" (and would never again use his old name), his powers developed to the point where he could shut down sentient machines using his voice alone. Under him, the group became ''very'' focused on paperwork: the [[Decepticon Empire]] required good administration, in his view. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} When [[Grimlock (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Grimlock]], who had briefly defected to the Decepticons, {{storylink|Animals}} {{storylink|Hasbro Heroes Sourcebook issue 2|Grimlock profile}} returned to the Autobot ranks, Megatron was so incensed by the betrayal that he ordered the DJD to bump the Dynobot leader up to the top of the list. In a subsequent battle against Grimlock, Tarn had his face badly mangled by his opponent. {{storylink|The Ties That Bind (issue)|The Ties That Bind}}

Some two hundred years ago, Tarn was present at Megatron's current command center when [[Starscream (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Starscream]] returned from a botched mission on [[Xetaxxis]]. {{storylink|Shining Armor issue 5|Shining Armor #5}}

[[File:LL14-tarn-unmasked.jpg|thumb|There's an ironic joke about [[empurata]] in here if someone cares to find it.]]

Some time later, the DJD established a base on the world of [[Messatine]] in order to obtain the "Nuke" superfuel there. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} Tarn coerced [[Pharma (G1)|Pharma]], head surgeon of the planet's Autobot medical facility [[Delphi]], into helping feed his addiction by supplying him with an ever-increasing number of transformation cogs from deceased patients, in exchange for the hospital being unmolested by his team. Pharma would eventually cut off Tarn's supply by orchestrating the facility's shutdown. {{storylink|How Ratchet Got His Hands Back}}

In 2009, following the [[Surge (event)|Surge]], Tarn led the D.J.D. to [[Garrus-9]] to find and eliminate his old teacher Shockwave, who was now the most wanted Decepticon on [[The List|the D.J.D's master hit list]]. After intercepting his vessel, however, they discovered that Shockwave had prepared for this eventuality by staffing his ship with crewmembers who were also on the list, in the hopes of bartering their lives for his. Tarn opted to ignore the offer, using his voice to slowly talk the old Senator to death, but Shockwave was able to blast the radio in time. When Shockwave's backup arrived in the form of [[Bludgeon (G1)|Bludgeon]] and the [[Pretender Monster|Monstructor Six]], the DJD retreated. {{storylink|The Ties That Bind (issue)|The Ties That Bind}}

[[File:Tarn transforms MTMTE08.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.2|He's got friends on the other side.]]

Though the war formally ended in 2012, Tarn and his group refused to give up the cause—indeed, they would only deign to stand down when Megatron personally commanded it—and continued to hunt down those Decepticons that had betrayed the cause and hadn't yet returned to Cybertron. {{storylink|Scavengers (Part 2): Who's Afraid of the DJD?|Who's Afraid of the DJD?}} Informed by Decepticon spy [[Brainstorm (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Brainstorm]] that high-priority target [[Overlord (Masterforce)|Overlord]] was aboard the starship ''[[Lost Light]]'', Tarn and the D.J.D. continued to work through their list of offenders as they waited for Brainstorm to drop the ship's shielding so they could pick up Overlord's signal. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} One such unfortunate was [[Black Shadow (Victory)|Black Shadow]], whom Tarn explosively finished off with his deadly voice, after which the team set course of the planet [[Clemency]] to hunt down Decepticon deserter [[Fulcrum]]. {{storylink|Rules of Disengagement (issue)|Rules of Disengagement}} Arriving on Clemency, the team discovered a mysterious [[stasis pod|stasis tube]] awaiting them; when Tarn investigated, he found it contained a deranged, [[circuit speeder]]-enhanced [[Grimlock (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Grimlock]], unleashed by Fulcrum and his new allies, the [[Scavenger (group)|Scavengers]]. Tarn was soon able to subdue the brain-damaged [[Dinobot (G1)|Dinobot]], but was then crushed beneath the foot of a [[Cybernought]] battle-mech that [[Crankcase (G1)|Crankcase]] had activated. Tarn recovered in time to hear Fulcrum deliver a speech to all assembled about Decepticon ideals before apparently committing suicide. At that point, [[Kaon (DJD)|Kaon]] detected Overlord's long-awaited signal, and Tarn ordered the D.J.D. to head out—but not before warning the surviving Scavengers that their names had now made it onto [[The List]]. {{storylink|Scavengers (Part 2): Who's Afraid of the DJD?|Who's Afraid of the DJD?}}

Tracking Overlord's signal, the D.J.D. found the ''Lost Light''—which was, unbeknownst to Tarn and his team, actually one of ''two'' versions of the ship created by a malfunction of its [[quantum generator]]s—near the planet [[Ofsted XVII]]. Despite having promised Brainstorm they would not harm any of the crew, the discovery that the traitor [[Drift (G1)|Deadlock]] was aboard the ship them set the D.J.D. off, and after dealing with him, they set about murdering the rest of the ship. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} Tarn personally destroyed [[Ultra Magnus (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Ultra Magnus]], [[Swerve (G1)|Swerve]], and [[Cyclonus (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Cyclonus]], and forced a large portion of the crew to transform before executing them, leaving their transformation cogs warm for location and harvesting. Eventually, Tarn removed a still-restrained and suicidal Overlord's head with a chainsaw, and the D.J.D. left the ship. {{storylink|slaughterhouse}} {{storylink|slaughterhouse Part 2: The Road Not Taken|The Road Not Taken}}

[[File:ThePermanentRevolution-goingtowar.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|'''Cause when push'' ''Comes to shove'' ''I will send a fully armed battalion'' ''To remind you of my love'' <s>for the cause</s>]]

Sometime during the months that followed, Kaon spontaneously began [[universal killswitch|writhing in agony]] right in front of Tarn, who tried to get his teammate to tell him what he could do to help, before the mysterious effect subsided. {{storylink|Remain in Light 4 of 5: Arm the Lonely|Arm the Lonely}} Also during this time, the D.J.D. welcomed a new member—[[Nickel]], the last survivor of a Cybertronian colony wiped out by the [[Black Block Consortia]]. At Nickel's insistence, they returned to Ofsted XVII to salvage the quantum engines from the derelict ''Lost Light''. They wound up arriving in the middle of a battle between the Consortia and the [[Galactic Council]], who teamed up against the Cybertronians. Under attack by both sides and faced with additional enemy reinforcements, Tarn was forced to retreat, leaving Vos and Kaon behind. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} Tarn eventually gifted Nickel a phone onto which he recorded a message she could use to paralyze people who were threatening her. {{storylink|Kill All 'Cons}}

The diminished D.J.D. returned to their duties, though Tarn began to weary of the work. After apprehending the [[Sparkeater (creature)|Sparkeater]]-worshipping [[Blip]], Tarn was about to end his life using his voice, until Blip used his last words to demand that Tarn remove his mask. Affronted, Tarn allowed [[Helex (DJD)|Helex]] and [[Tesarus (DJD)|Tesarus]] to finish Blip instead, averting his gaze beneath his mask. Tarn subsequently ordered performance reviews for the team, and nearly came to blows with Tesarus when he implied that abandoning Vos and Kaon was not the Decepticon thing to do. Calming himself, Tarn explained that they were returning to Ofsted XVII again in order to recover their bodies, but was interrupted by Helex's announcement that Vos and Kaon had returned to the ship safe, sound, and with something unbelievable: a postwar edition of ''[[Towards Peace]]'' that revealed Megatron himself had defected from the Decepticons.

His world shattered by this discovery, Tarn had the D.J.D. return to Messatine, where he attempted to fatally overdose on Nuke. Finding even the sensation of dying disappointing, Tarn opened his eyes to see a distraught Nickel pressed against the glass of his fueling capsule. The sight of her triggered a revelation for Tarn: she was a 'bot who had experienced first-hand the threat the predominantly-organic universe posed to Cybertronians, and who had fully embraced the Decepticon cause despite living her life outside of the war. The cause, Tarn now realized, was bigger than any one 'bot—bigger than Megatron. Galvanized, Tarn set up a meeting with the rogue Decepticon warlord [[Deathsaurus (Victory)|Deathsaurus]] aboard his stolen [[Warworld]]. Knowing full well he was on the D.J.D.'s list, Deathsaurus pre-emptively attacked Tarn upon his arrival, even deactivating his audio receptors to protect himself from Tarn's voice, but Tarn was able to communicate with him and his troops through [[inter-Decepticon radio]] and explained the reason for his presence: he wished them to ally with him, in return for their being taken off The List. Deathsaurus agreed on the condition that Tarn kill the rest of the D.J.D., which Tarn refused to do—which was the response Deathsaurus had been hoping for. With their alliance cemented, Tarn declared their new objective: kill the traitorous Megatron and all of his allies! {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}}

[[File:TarnAltMode.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|left|I'm about to drop the hammer and dispense some indiscriminate justice!]]

The allied forces of Tarn and Deathsaurus proceeded to attack the [[Necroworld|Necrobot's world]], killing [[Mortilus|its sole inhabitant]] and using his machinery to broadcast a message that lured Megatron and all those aboard the ''Lost Light'' sympathetic to him down to the planet. When they arrived, the villains shot them down and cornered them in the Necrobot's fortress. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light: (1) How Bright Their Frail Deeds|How Bright Their Frail Deeds}} As an act of indirect torture, Tarn had their forces pull back, warning Megatron and his comrades that they would return at sunset, leaving them to stew in their own fear. Returning to the ''[[Peaceful Tyranny]]'', Tarn spent the time showing off his collection of Megatron's writings to Deathsaurus, and discussing tactics with his men; he did not take Tesarus's concerns about the Necrobot's fortress's storm shield seriously, but the discussion was interrupted by a call on Tarn's personal communicator from Megatron himself. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 2: The Sun in Flight|The Sun in Flight}}

[[File:YourFierceTears-byebyekaon.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|Give me your...you know the drill.]]

Tarn agreed to a meeting with Megatron alone, whereupon his former leader agreed to surrender in exchange for the rest of the Autobots being allowed to go free. Saddened and disgusted to truly see with his own eyes how far his idol had fallen, Tarn beat him to within an inch of his life, and was just about to deliver the killing shot when [[Overlord (Masterforce)|Overlord]] suddenly appeared, insisting that it was his right to end Megatron's life. Both refused to stand down, resulting in a bickering battle between the two that gave Megatron the chance to escape. Realizing their folly, Tarn and Overlord agreed to a truce, though Overlord continued to needle Tarn all the way back to the ''Peaceful Tyranny''. The final straw came when a distraught Kaon arrived with the news that the Autobots had kidnapped the D.J.D.'s [[Dominus Ambus|pet sparkeater]]; determined to cut out of both the hearts of himself and his men the compassion that he saw as Megatron's downfall, Tarn slew Kaon on the spot, tearing his head from his shoulders. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 3: Your Fierce Tears|Your Fierce Tears}}

At sundown, Tarn led the Decepticons in their attack, {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 4: At Close of Day|At Close of Day}} playing "The Empyrean Suite" across the battlefield as battle commenced. He initially hung back with Deathsaurus, but joined the fight in earnest after a temporary power-up acquired by the Autobots wore off, ripping [[Ravage (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Ravage]] clean in half. Unfortunately, that turned out to be just the thing to bring Megatron out onto the battlefield, cutting swathes through the Decepticon troops. Tarn surreptitiously ordered the D.J.D. to retreat, whilst demanding Deathsaurus's troops enact a suicidal assault on Megatron. When the ex-Decepticon's new fusion cannon was destroyed, he unexpectedly sunk to his knees in panicked defeat, and Tarn and Overlord moved to strike the final blow together. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 5: Rage, Rage|Rage, Rage}}

[[File:mtmte55 goodbye tarn.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.4|You will die alone. Unmourned. And unloved.]]
Their shots, however, were reflected by the sudden activation of a forcefield by Megatron. Whilst Overlord and Deathsaurus abandoned the planet, unwilling to waste their time and troops respectively on Megatron, Tarn and the other remaining members of the D.J.D. assaulted the forcefield until they could finally force their way in. Things went very badly wrong after that, as soon as the D.J.D. were all inside Megatron rose to his feet and chided Tarn, ripping the D.J.D. leader's fusion cannon off in disgust. With dawning horror the D.J.D. realized everything was all according to Megatron's plan–after years of study, he had finally managed to interlink his systems with a black hole to harvest [[antimatter]], and he had no intention of letting any of them leave alive. With his former enforcers now trapped, Megatron tore through them with tendrils of antimatter, speaking their true names at the moments of their deaths. Tarn was saved for last, his mask ripped off as Megatron called him by his previous name: "Glitch". Tarn first begged for Megatron to be "reasonable", then tried fake bravado, just as many of his own victims had done... and with as little success.

Completing his denouncement of his former enforcer, Megatron informed Damus that "Everything you did was for nothing" and obliterated him with antimatter. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 6: Do Not Go Gentle|Do Not Go Gentle}}

Much later, when Nickel was on the verge of being killed by [[Scorponok (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Scorponok]], she used Tarn's voicemail message to paralyze the ex-Decepticon, allowing her and the [[Scavenger (group)|Scavengers]] to escape. {{storylink|Kill All 'Cons}}
{{-}}

====The Functionist Universe====
[[File:This Machine Kills Fascists-Functionist Glitch.jpg|thumb|"There must always be a Megatron."]]
Glitch was amongst a group of [[Anti-Vocationist League]] members who attended a secret meeting beneath [[Nova Point]]. There, he listened to the universally-displaced Megatron speak about how to fight the [[Functionist Council]] for the goal of "peace through empathy". {{storylink|Dissolution Part 6: This Machine Kills Fascists|This Machine Kills Fascists}}

===''Kre-O'' online manga===
[[File:KreO-webcomic-9-Tarn.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.6]]
Tarn was part of [[Bludgeon (Kre-O)|Bludgeon]]'s forces when they uncovered the [[Red Bucket]]. {{storylink|Treasure Competition! Defeat with Block Power!}}

{{-}}

===''TransTech''===
An [[Lowtech|Offworlder]] in [[Axiom Nexus]], Tarn was a judge of ''[[Cybertron's Got Talent]]'' in the wake of [[Ego (TransTech)|Ego]]'s death. Tarn enjoyed calling out sub-par transformations as part of his judging. {{storylink|Andromeda - Axiom Nexus News Reporter|Andromeda - Axiom Nexus News, 2015/05/14}}

===An Arcee Sort of Day===
After the Great War ended, Damus joined a [[Unicron/Generation 1|Unicron]] cult, warning a passing [[Arcee (G1)|Arcee]] that the world was ending. {{storylink|An Arcee Sort of Day}}

===2019 IDW continuity===
Damus was enjoying a drug den when [[Nightbeat (G1)|Nightbeat]] kicked down the door and requested both calm and [[Sixshot (G1)|Sixshot]]'s squad from the [[War of the Threefold Spark]]. {{storylink|The Change In Your Nature Part One}}
{{-}}

==Games==
===''Transformers Legends''===
Tarn and the rest of the DJD pursued Black Shadow for taking bribes from the Autobots. The DJD found their target hiding on planet Clemency, and dispatched them with extreme prejudice as Tarn set course for their next assignment. {{storylink|Rules of Disengagement (Legends)|Rules of Disengagement}}
{{-}}

==Merchandise==
===Flame Toys===
[[File:FlameToysTarn.jpg|upright=1.66|thumb|"You'll suffer till the end of time, enduring tortures, most of which rhyme, trapped forever here in Robot Hell!"]]
*'''Tarn''' (August [[2018]])
**''Accessories'': mask, 2 fusion cannons, 2 back cannons, clean mask (exclusive), 2 vocal effector cannons (exclusive)

:Produced by [[Flame Toys]] as part of their ''Kuro Kara Kuri'' line, Tarn is a detailed non-transforming action figure featuring [[die-cast]] parts and LEDs in his head, chest, and legs. He comes with two fusion cannons that can be mounted on his arm or combined into one giant handheld weapon, two guns that attach to his back and a removable mask. If purchased via D4toys.com, SEN-TI-DEN Hong Kong, or events attended by Flame Toys, he also includes an alternate mask without scars and two speakers that can replace the back guns.

*'''Tarn (Power Burst ver.)''' ([[July 26]], [[2019]])
:Debuted by Flame Toys at ACGHK 2019, "Tarn (Power Burst ver.)" is a chrome-plated redeco of the above figure, limited to 300 pieces: 200 at ACGHK 2019 and 100 at D4toys.com.
{{-}}

==Notes==
[[File: Tfhero_tarn_lookalike.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|I don't really see it, to be honest.]]

* Tarn's true identity was a mystery all the way up until his final appearance in [[The Dying of the Light Part 6: Do Not Go Gentle|issue #55]]. A popular theory was that he was [[Roller (IDW)|Roller]]—a character who'd conspicuously gone missing sometime before the events of ''[[The Transformers: Megatron Origin|Megatron Origin]]'' and ''[[The Transformers: Autocracy|Autocracy]]''—was Tarn, and [[Elegant Chaos Part 1: All Our Parlous Yesterdays#Other trivia|''More than Meets the Eye'' issue #36]] even dropped a few clues that furthered this interpretation. Ultimately, however, [[The Dying of the Light Part 6: Do Not Go Gentle|issue #55]] revealed these to be nothing more than red herrings; in keeping with this, Roller returned alive and well in the same issue, right after Velocity asked who Tarn really was and just before the actual unmasking.
*Damus's name is derived from the historical figure {{w|Nostradamus}}.<ref>[https://twitter.com/jroberts332/status/1058379500898140161 Twitter conversation with James Roberts on 2 November, 2018]</ref>
* According to James Roberts, Damus was forged in the city of, uh, [[Tarn (polity)|Tarn]]. <ref>James Roberts Q&A at TFNation 2017</ref>
* James Roberts has described Tarn as a [[Phase Sixer]]<ref>[https://twitter.com/jroberts332/status/1230022928688910338?lang=en/ James Roberts on Twitter]</ref>; the only implication from the comic is that in [[Remembrance Day|''More than Meets the Eye'' #14]], just before the launch of the [[Lost Light]], [[Prowl (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Prowl]] compared Tarn to [[Overlord]] and [[Sixshot]], the two Phase Sixers. However, given the fact that Tarn pretty explicitly does his own thing and doesn't follow [[infiltration protocol]], the exact implications of this statement aren't entirely clear. It's also likely that this comment is just referring to a specific "power level" and not a direct commentary on his role in the Decepticon army. In any case, whether Tarn has done any of Phase Sixer's duties is irrelevant, he is still considered at the power level of them.
*[[Alex Milne]] said in a Facebook interview that his ideal voice for Tarn is [[Keith David]].<ref>[https://www.facebook.com/notes/transformers/transformers-more-than-meets-the-eye-vol-2-alex-milne-interview/395646703838863 Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye vol. 2 Alex Milne interview]</ref>
*Like all non-toy robot [[Kreon]]s in the ''Kre-O'' manga, Kreon Tarn is made from existing ''Kre-O'' parts, but extensively "painted". He uses the [[Ratchet (Kre-O)|Ratchet]] helmet, the [[Megatron (Kre-O)|Megatron]] arm-cannon, and some kind of setup to wear the Bludgeon treads on his back.
*Tarn's design bears a fairly strong resemblance to a piece of concept artwork for ''Transformers: Hero'', the franchise that would eventually evolve into ''[[Transformers Animated (franchise)|Transformers Animated]]''. Alex Milne says he's never seen it before,<ref>[https://twitter.com/markerguru/status/1204197465248931840 Twitter conversation with Alex Milne on 9 December, 2019]</ref> which shouldn't come as much of a surprise; in a franchise that's this big, and that's been around this long, some ideas are good enough to be had twice.
*The [[Perfect Decepticon]]s from ''[[Transformers: Cyberverse (cartoon)|Transformers: Cyberverse]]'' are designed to resemble Tarn.
*Another interesting fact is that Tarn seems to be the only cybertronian who is both an [[outlier]] and a [[Point-One Percenter]].

===Foreign names===
*''Japanese:'' '''Tarn''' (ターン ''Tān'')

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:Anti-Vocationist League]]
[[Category:Decepticon leaders]]
[[Category:IDW (2005) Decepticons]]
[[Category:IDW (2019) Transformers]]
[[Category:Kre-O Decepticons]]
[[Category:Kreons]]
[[Category:Point One Percenters]]
[[Category:TransTech Decepticons]]

Tarn (G1)

2021-07-29T08:07:42Z

Mi5FiRE: Corrected and added details from the comic, adding a extra note

{{factions|decepticon}}
{{disambigm|Tarn (polity)|Glitch (disambiguation)}}
:''Tarn is a [[Decepticon]] from the [[2005 IDW continuity|2005 IDW portion]] of the [[Generation 1 continuity family|Generation 1]] [[continuity family]].''

[[File:MTMTE Tarn Alex Milne.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|He kills you with culture... and also ''violence''.]]
'''Tarn''' is an eloquent [[Decepticon]]. He enjoys nothing more than playing beautiful [[The Empyrean Suite|music]] as he waxes poetic quoting ''[[Towards Peace]]'' and other philosophical works by [[Megatron (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Megatron]]. He tends to indulge these pleasures at the same time he's using his [[outlier]] ability to cause the [[Decepticon Justice Division]]'s latest transgressor's spark to self-destruct. The leader of the D.J.D., Tarn epitomizes the mentality of the team. He is beyond zealous in his devotion to Megatron's cause, going so far as to emboss the Decepticon [[insignia]] onto his own faceplate. No traitor, no coward is capable of escaping his team.

Despite appearances, Tarn is a mess of contradictions. Viewing himself as the central pillar of the D.J.D., he can be as brutally violent as any other Decepticon, but views himself as a bureaucrat and his team as his administration. He believes his actions are entirely justified, yet sometimes his thoughts are a constant stream of self-denigration. He works hard to run a tight but fair ship, and is not above taking in an open-minded, needy stray. On the other hand, for all his thoughts of sophistication and control, Tarn can go from affable to life-threatening at the least provocation. His addictive tendencies have led to him burning out his original [[transformation cog]] years ago, and his reliance on the power-enhancing [[Nucleon (substance)|Nuke]] can lead to his losing himself to the lust for violence. And have no doubt that while he may try and convince himself otherwise, Tarn is a truly sociopathic murderer. Ultimately whether Tarn is a monster or not is irrelevant. His utter devotion to the Decepticon cause means he will ensure the fear of Megatron is put into any that would consider abandoning their noble goals.

{{quote|If you want to break someone—mentally, physically, emotionally—wait until they're happy. Let them live and love and thrive. Once they recognize the value of a life well lived... THAT'S when you move in for the kill. Because you can't take anything from someone who has nothing to lose.|Tarn|"[[The Dying of the Light Part 2: The Sun in Flight|The Sun in Flight]]" teaser}}

==Fiction==
===2005 IDW continuity===
{{First|[[How Ratchet Got His Hands Back|''More than Meets the Eye'' #5]] (shadowy image); [[Rules of Disengagement (issue)|#7]] (full appearance, as Tarn); [[Shadowplay, Part 2: Patternism|#10]] (as Glitch)}}

[[File:Ratchet glitch shadowplay.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|Glitch is [[Wolverine (Marvel)|the one with the claws]].]]
'''Damus''' was [[reproduction|forged]], born an exceptionally powerful [[Point One Percenter]] {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} and an [[Outlier (group)|outlier]] who possessed the ability to render non-sentient machinery inoperative by touching it, but with one drawback: the power hurt him every time he used it. Before the [[Great War (G1)|war]], Damus attended the [[Jhiaxian Academy of Advanced Technology]] where they possibly attempted to analyze his brain-wave patterns and kept his outlier status hidden from the [[Senate]] and [[Functionist Council]].

At some point, he crossed the [[Senate]] and was subjected to [[empurata]]: his hands and head replaced to mark him out as someone to shun. After that, to tie in with his power, he started to call himself '''Glitch'''. {{storylink|Shadowplay, Part 2: Patternism|Patternism}}

When [[Optimus Prime (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Orion Pax]] devised a plan to steal a bomb disguised as the [[Matrix of Leadership|Matrix]] from [[Nominus Prime]]'s corpse his [[Shockwave (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Senator friend]] recruited Damus, [[Windcharger (G1)|Windcharger]], and [[Skids (G1)|Skids]] from the Academy to participate in the heist. Damus's part in the plan was to deactivate the deflector beams above the [[Primal Basilica]] and despite a slight hitch when Damus accidentally jammed Skids's grappling hook by touching his arm, the plan succeeded. {{storylink|Shadowplay (Conclusion): An Intimate Beheading|An Intimate Beheading}}

Following Shockwave's capture and brainwashing by the [[Senate]], the Outliers stuck with Orion Pax and aided him in defending a [[hot spot (phenomenon)|hot spot]] in [[Alyon]] from [[Sentinel Prime (G1)|Sentinel Prime]]'s forces. By this time Damus had gotten replacement hands and learned to use his power from a distance, utilizing it to break down [[Elite Guard]] vehicles from afar. With help from a group of time travelers from the ''[[Lost Light]]'' of the future, the group took down a weapons platform sent to irradiate the hot spot's [[spark]]s, then had their memories of the travelers wiped by [[Chromedome (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Chromedome]].

[[File:PermanentRevolution-Backwards.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.2|[[Keith David|"And what would you have your Justice Division do?"]]]]

During the whole affair, Orion Pax recommended reading Megatron's treatises around Glitch: "powerful stuff," he said. Considering Megatron's stated reasons for converting him to the Decepticon cause, we can only assume that he listened a little too well. {{storylink|Elegant Chaos Part 1: All Our Parlous Yesterdays|All Our Parlous Yesterdays}}

Exactly how and when Damus joined the Decepticons is unknown, but Megatron would later claim he had deliberately "corrupted" Tarn to hurt ''someone'' and prove a point. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 3: Your Fierce Tears|Your Fierce Tears}} Damus joined early enough to be at the beginning of Megatron's march across Cybertron. Rebuilt under the supervision of [[Lobe]], {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} Damus's power and endurance was considered by [[Prowl (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Prowl]] to put him on the same level as a [[Phase Sixer]]. {{storylink|Remembrance Day}} His mask was taken as a sign of Decepticon supremacy but, at least so he told himself, it was really so nobody would notice when he closed his eyes around Decepticon brutality. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} In one particular battle during the war, Damus tussled with [[Thunder Clash|Thunderclash]]. {{storylink|Shining Armor issue 3|Shining Armor #3}}

[[File:SpeakMemory2-results.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|"How's it hanging? ... Oh... oh. That dude is ''really'' hanging there. My bad." "Stop it, you uncultured mech. You came here to report, not make puns."]]

Damus became commandant of [[Grindcore (prison)|Grindcore prison]], where he became associated with "[[The Empyrean Suite]]", playing it at maximum volume to drown out the screams of the prisoners he executed via smelting. {{storylink|Speak, Memory: Part 1}} In this, he was trying to deliberately bastardize a song composed by [[Eucryphia]] to celebrate [[Prima]] and the [[Citadel of Light]]. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} One of his prisoners, soon after the prison's smelting chamber had malfunctioned, was his old comrade Skids. Damus bargained with Skids to fix it, telling him it was a "teleport chamber" and fifty prisoners would be released from Grindcore for this, and was able to con Skids into thinking that he could be trusted. Skids was relaxed enough around Damus to take praise genuinely and push for more freed prisoners later.

In the end, Damus sent all fifty prisoners to the "teleporation chamber" and cruelly forced Skids to watch as it was used to execute a group of prisoners, including Skids's cellmate [[Quark]], melting them down into raw materials for use in the creation of [[M.T.O.]]s. Damus deliberately used the event to cripple Skids' religious faith. {{storylink|Speak, Memory: Part 1}} {{storylink|Speak, Memory! (Part 2)}}

After Damus became leader of the D.J.D. as "Tarn" (and would never again use his old name), his powers developed to the point where he could shut down sentient machines using his voice alone. Under him, the group became ''very'' focused on paperwork: the [[Decepticon Empire]] required good administration, in his view. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} When [[Grimlock (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Grimlock]], who had briefly defected to the Decepticons, {{storylink|Animals}} {{storylink|Hasbro Heroes Sourcebook issue 2|Grimlock profile}} returned to the Autobot ranks, Megatron was so incensed by the betrayal that he ordered the DJD to bump the Dynobot leader up to the top of the list. In a subsequent battle against Grimlock, Tarn had his face badly mangled by his opponent. {{storylink|The Ties That Bind (issue)|The Ties That Bind}}

Some two hundred years ago, Tarn was present at Megatron's current command center when [[Starscream (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Starscream]] returned from a botched mission on [[Xetaxxis]]. {{storylink|Shining Armor issue 5|Shining Armor #5}}

[[File:LL14-tarn-unmasked.jpg|thumb|There's an ironic joke about [[empurata]] in here if someone cares to find it.]]

Some time later, the DJD established a base on the world of [[Messatine]] in order to obtain the "Nuke" superfuel there. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} Tarn coerced [[Pharma (G1)|Pharma]], head surgeon of the planet's Autobot medical facility [[Delphi]], into helping feed his addiction by supplying him with an ever-increasing number of transformation cogs from deceased patients, in exchange for the hospital being unmolested by his team. Pharma would eventually cut off Tarn's supply by orchestrating the facility's shutdown. {{storylink|How Ratchet Got His Hands Back}}

In 2009, following the [[Surge (event)|Surge]], Tarn led the D.J.D. to [[Garrus-9]] to find and eliminate his old teacher Shockwave, who was now the most wanted Decepticon on [[The List|the D.J.D's master hit list]]. After intercepting his vessel, however, they discovered that Shockwave had prepared for this eventuality by staffing his ship with crewmembers who were also on the list, in the hopes of bartering their lives for his. Tarn opted to ignore the offer, using his voice to slowly talk the old Senator to death, but Shockwave was able to blast the radio in time. When Shockwave's backup arrived in the form of [[Bludgeon (G1)|Bludgeon]] and the [[Pretender Monster|Monstructor Six]], the DJD retreated. {{storylink|The Ties That Bind (issue)|The Ties That Bind}}

[[File:Tarn transforms MTMTE08.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.2|He's got friends on the other side.]]

Though the war formally ended in 2012, Tarn and his group refused to give up the cause—indeed, they would only deign to stand down when Megatron personally commanded it—and continued to hunt down those Decepticons that had betrayed the cause and hadn't yet returned to Cybertron. {{storylink|Scavengers (Part 2): Who's Afraid of the DJD?|Who's Afraid of the DJD?}} Informed by Decepticon spy [[Brainstorm (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Brainstorm]] that high-priority target [[Overlord (Masterforce)|Overlord]] was aboard the starship ''[[Lost Light]]'', Tarn and the D.J.D. continued to work through their list of offenders as they waited for Brainstorm to drop the ship's shielding so they could pick up Overlord's signal. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} One such unfortunate was [[Black Shadow (Victory)|Black Shadow]], whom Tarn explosively finished off with his deadly voice, after which the team set course of the planet [[Clemency]] to hunt down Decepticon deserter [[Fulcrum]]. {{storylink|Rules of Disengagement (issue)|Rules of Disengagement}} Arriving on Clemency, the team discovered a mysterious [[stasis pod|stasis tube]] awaiting them; when Tarn investigated, he found it contained a deranged, [[circuit speeder]]-enhanced [[Grimlock (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Grimlock]], unleashed by Fulcrum and his new allies, the [[Scavenger (group)|Scavengers]]. Tarn was soon able to subdue the brain-damaged [[Dinobot (G1)|Dinobot]], but was then crushed beneath the foot of a [[Cybernought]] battle-mech that [[Crankcase (G1)|Crankcase]] had activated. Tarn recovered in time to hear Fulcrum deliver a speech to all assembled about Decepticon ideals before apparently committing suicide. At that point, [[Kaon (DJD)|Kaon]] detected Overlord's long-awaited signal, and Tarn ordered the D.J.D. to head out—but not before warning the surviving Scavengers that their names had now made it onto [[The List]]. {{storylink|Scavengers (Part 2): Who's Afraid of the DJD?|Who's Afraid of the DJD?}}

Tracking Overlord's signal, the D.J.D. found the ''Lost Light''—which was, unbeknownst to Tarn and his team, actually one of ''two'' versions of the ship created by a malfunction of its [[quantum generator]]s—near the planet [[Ofsted XVII]]. Despite having promised Brainstorm they would not harm any of the crew, the discovery that the traitor [[Drift (G1)|Deadlock]] was aboard the ship them set the D.J.D. off, and after dealing with him, they set about murdering the rest of the ship. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} Tarn personally destroyed [[Ultra Magnus (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Ultra Magnus]], [[Swerve (G1)|Swerve]], and [[Cyclonus (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Cyclonus]], and forced a large portion of the crew to transform before executing them, leaving their transformation cogs warm for location and harvesting. Eventually, Tarn removed a still-restrained and suicidal Overlord's head with a chainsaw, and the D.J.D. left the ship. {{storylink|slaughterhouse}} {{storylink|slaughterhouse Part 2: The Road Not Taken|The Road Not Taken}}

[[File:ThePermanentRevolution-goingtowar.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|'''Cause when push'' ''Comes to shove'' ''I will send a fully armed battalion'' ''To remind you of my love'' <s>for the cause</s>]]

Sometime during the months that followed, Kaon spontaneously began [[universal killswitch|writhing in agony]] right in front of Tarn, who tried to get his teammate to tell him what he could do to help, before the mysterious effect subsided. {{storylink|Remain in Light 4 of 5: Arm the Lonely|Arm the Lonely}} Also during this time, the D.J.D. welcomed a new member—[[Nickel]], last survivor of a Cybertronian colony wiped out by the [[Black Block Consortia]]. At Nickel's insistence, they returned to Ofsted XVII to salvage the quantum engines from the derelict ''Lost Light''. They wound up arriving in the middle of a battle between the Consortia and the [[Galactic Council]], who teamed up against the Cybertronians. Under attack by both sides and faced with additional enemy reinforcements, Tarn was forced to retreat, leaving Vos and Kaon behind. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} Tarn eventually gifted Nickel a phone onto which he recorded a message she could use to paralyze people who were threatening her. {{storylink|Kill All 'Cons}}

The diminished D.J.D. returned to their duties, though Tarn began to weary of the work. After apprehending the [[Sparkeater (creature)|Sparkeater]]-worshipping [[Blip]], Tarn was about to end his life using his voice, until Blip used his last words to demand that Tarn remove his mask. Affronted, Tarn allowed [[Helex (DJD)|Helex]] and [[Tesarus (DJD)|Tesarus]] to finish Blip instead, averting his gaze beneath his mask. Tarn subsequently ordered performance reviews for the team, and nearly came to blows with Tesarus when he implied that abandoning Vos and Kaon was not the Decepticon thing to do. Calming himself, Tarn explained that they were returning to Ofsted XVII again in order to recover their bodies, but was interrupted by Helex's announcement that Vos and Kaon had returned to the ship safe, sound, and with something unbelievable: a postwar edition of ''[[Towards Peace]]'' that revealed Megatron himself had defected from the Decepticons.

His world shattered by this discovery, Tarn had the D.J.D. return to Messatine, where he attempted to fatally overdose on Nuke. Finding even the sensation of dying disappointing, Tarn opened his eyes to see a distraught Nickel pressed against the glass of his fueling capsule. The sight of her triggered a revelation for Tarn: she was a 'bot who had experienced first-hand the threat the predominantly-organic universe posed to Cybertronians, and who had fully embraced the Decepticon cause despite living her life outside of the war. The cause, Tarn now realized, was bigger than any one 'bot—bigger than Megatron. Galvanized, Tarn set up a meeting with the rogue Decepticon warlord [[Deathsaurus (Victory)|Deathsaurus]] aboard his stolen [[Warworld]]. Knowing full well he was on the D.J.D.'s list, Deathsaurus pre-emptively attacked Tarn upon his arrival, even deactivating his audio receptors to protect himself from Tarn's voice, but Tarn was able to communicate with him and his troops through [[inter-Decepticon radio]] and explained the reason for his presence: he wished them to ally with him, in return for their being taken off The List. Deathsaurus agreed on the condition that Tarn kill the rest of the D.J.D., which Tarn refused to do—which was the response Deathsaurus had been hoping for. With their alliance cemented, Tarn declared their new objective: kill the traitorous Megatron and all of his allies! {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}}

[[File:TarnAltMode.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|left|I'm about to drop the hammer and dispense some indiscriminate justice!]]

The allied forces of Tarn and Deathsaurus proceeded to attack the [[Necroworld|Necrobot's world]], killing [[Mortilus|its sole inhabitant]] and using his machinery to broadcast a message that lured Megatron and all those aboard the ''Lost Light'' sympathetic to him down to the planet. When they arrived, the villains shot them down and cornered them in the Necrobot's fortress. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light: (1) How Bright Their Frail Deeds|How Bright Their Frail Deeds}} As an act of indirect torture, Tarn had their forces pull back, warning Megatron and his comrades that they would return at sunset, leaving them to stew in their own fear. Returning to the ''[[Peaceful Tyranny]]'', Tarn spent the time showing off his collection of Megatron's writings to Deathsaurus, and discussing tactics with his men; he did not take Tesarus's concerns about the Necrobot's fortress's storm shield seriously, but the discussion was interrupted by a call on Tarn's personal communicator from Megatron himself. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 2: The Sun in Flight|The Sun in Flight}}

[[File:YourFierceTears-byebyekaon.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|Give me your...you know the drill.]]

Tarn agreed to a meeting with Megatron alone, whereupon his former leader agreed to surrender in exchange for the rest of the Autobots being allowed to go free. Saddened and disgusted to truly see with his own eyes how far his idol had fallen, Tarn beat him to within an inch of his life, and was just about to deliver the killing shot when [[Overlord (Masterforce)|Overlord]] suddenly appeared, insisting that it was his right to end Megatron's life. Both refused to stand down, resulting in a bickering battle between the two that gave Megatron the chance to escape. Realizing their folly, Tarn and Overlord agreed to a truce, though Overlord continued to needle Tarn all the way back to the ''Peaceful Tyranny''. The final straw came when a distraught Kaon arrived with the news that the Autobots had kidnapped the D.J.D.'s [[Dominus Ambus|pet sparkeater]]; determined to cut out of both the hearts of himself and his men the compassion that he saw as Megatron's downfall, Tarn slew Kaon on the spot, tearing his head from his shoulders. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 3: Your Fierce Tears|Your Fierce Tears}}

At sundown, Tarn led the Decepticons in their attack, {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 4: At Close of Day|At Close of Day}} playing "The Empyrean Suite" across the battlefield as battle commenced. He initially hung back with Deathsaurus, but joined the fight in earnest after a temporary power-up acquired by the Autobots wore off, ripping [[Ravage (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Ravage]] clean in half. Unfortunately, that turned out to be just the thing to bring Megatron out onto the battlefield, cutting swathes through the Decepticon troops. Tarn surreptitiously ordered the D.J.D. to retreat, whilst demanding Deathsaurus's troops enact a suicidal assault on Megatron. When the ex-Decepticon's new fusion cannon was destroyed, he unexpectedly sunk to his knees in panicked defeat, and Tarn and Overlord moved to strike the final blow together. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 5: Rage, Rage|Rage, Rage}}

[[File:mtmte55 goodbye tarn.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.4|You will die alone. Unmourned. And unloved.]]
Their shots, however, were reflected by the sudden activation of a forcefield by Megatron. Whilst Overlord and Deathsaurus abandoned the planet, unwilling to waste their time and troops respectively on Megatron, Tarn and the other remaining members of the D.J.D. assaulted the forcefield until they could finally force their way in. Things went very badly wrong after that, as soon as the D.J.D. were all inside Megatron rose to his feet and chided Tarn, ripping the D.J.D. leader's fusion cannon off in disgust. With dawning horror the D.J.D. realised everything was all according to Megatron's plan–after years of study, he had finally managed to interlink his systems with a black hole to harvest [[antimatter]], and he had no intention of letting any of them leave alive. With his former enforcers now trapped, Megatron tore through them with tendrils of antimatter, speaking their true names at the moments of their deaths. Tarn was saved for last, his mask ripped off as Megatron called him by his previous name: "Glitch". Tarn first begged for Megatron to be "reasonable", then tried fake bravado, just as many of his own victims had done... and with as little success.

Completing his denouncement of his former enforcer, Megatron informed Damus that "Everything you did was for nothing" and obliterated him with antimatter. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 6: Do Not Go Gentle|Do Not Go Gentle}}

Much later, when Nickel was on the verge of being killed by [[Scorponok (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Scorponok]], she used Tarn's voicemail message to paralyze the ex-Decepticon, allowing her and the [[Scavenger (group)|Scavengers]] to escape. {{storylink|Kill All 'Cons}}
{{-}}

====The Functionist Universe====
[[File:This Machine Kills Fascists-Functionist Glitch.jpg|thumb|"There must always be a Megatron."]]
Glitch was amongst a group of [[Anti-Vocationist League]] members who attended a secret meeting beneath [[Nova Point]]. There, he listened to the universally-displaced Megatron speak about how to fight the [[Functionist Council]] for the goal of "peace through empathy". {{storylink|Dissolution Part 6: This Machine Kills Fascists|This Machine Kills Fascists}}

===''Kre-O'' online manga===
[[File:KreO-webcomic-9-Tarn.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.6]]
Tarn was part of [[Bludgeon (Kre-O)|Bludgeon]]'s forces when they uncovered the [[Red Bucket]]. {{storylink|Treasure Competition! Defeat with Block Power!}}

{{-}}

===''TransTech''===
An [[Lowtech|Offworlder]] in [[Axiom Nexus]], Tarn was a judge of ''[[Cybertron's Got Talent]]'' in the wake of [[Ego (TransTech)|Ego]]'s death. Tarn enjoyed calling out sub-par transformations as part of his judging. {{storylink|Andromeda - Axiom Nexus News Reporter|Andromeda - Axiom Nexus News, 2015/05/14}}

===An Arcee Sort of Day===
After the Great War ended, Damus joined a [[Unicron/Generation 1|Unicron]] cult, warning a passing [[Arcee (G1)|Arcee]] that the world was ending. {{storylink|An Arcee Sort of Day}}

===2019 IDW continuity===
Damus was enjoying a drug den when [[Nightbeat (G1)|Nightbeat]] kicked down the door and requested both calm and [[Sixshot (G1)|Sixshot]]'s squad from the [[War of the Threefold Spark]]. {{storylink|The Change In Your Nature Part One}}
{{-}}

==Games==
===''Transformers Legends''===
Tarn and the rest of the DJD pursued Black Shadow for taking bribes from the Autobots. The DJD found their target hiding on planet Clemency, and dispatched them with extreme prejudice as Tarn set course for their next assignment. {{storylink|Rules of Disengagement (Legends)|Rules of Disengagement}}
{{-}}

==Merchandise==
===Flame Toys===
[[File:FlameToysTarn.jpg|upright=1.66|thumb|"You'll suffer till the end of time, enduring tortures, most of which rhyme, trapped forever here in Robot Hell!"]]
*'''Tarn''' (August [[2018]])
**''Accessories'': mask, 2 fusion cannons, 2 back cannons, clean mask (exclusive), 2 vocal effector cannons (exclusive)

:Produced by [[Flame Toys]] as part of their ''Kuro Kara Kuri'' line, Tarn is a detailed non-transforming action figure featuring [[die-cast]] parts and LEDs in his head, chest, and legs. He comes with two fusion cannons that can be mounted on his arm or combined into one giant handheld weapon, two guns that attach to his back and a removable mask. If purchased via D4toys.com, SEN-TI-DEN Hong Kong, or events attended by Flame Toys, he also includes an alternate mask without scars and two speakers that can replace the back guns.

*'''Tarn (Power Burst ver.)''' ([[July 26]], [[2019]])
:Debuted by Flame Toys at ACGHK 2019, "Tarn (Power Burst ver.)" is a chrome-plated redeco of the above figure, limited to 300 pieces: 200 at ACGHK 2019 and 100 at D4toys.com.
{{-}}

==Notes==
[[File: Tfhero_tarn_lookalike.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|I don't really see it, to be honest.]]

* Tarn's true identity was a mystery all the way up until his final appearance in [[The Dying of the Light Part 6: Do Not Go Gentle|issue #55]]. A popular theory was that he was [[Roller (IDW)|Roller]]—a character who'd conspicuously gone missing some time before the events of ''[[The Transformers: Megatron Origin|Megatron Origin]]'' and ''[[The Transformers: Autocracy|Autocracy]]''—was Tarn, and [[Elegant Chaos Part 1: All Our Parlous Yesterdays#Other trivia|''More than Meets the Eye'' issue #36]] even dropped a few clues that furthered this interpretation. Ultimately, however, [[The Dying of the Light Part 6: Do Not Go Gentle|issue #55]] revealed these to be nothing more than red herrings; in keeping with this, Roller returned alive and well in the same issue, right after Velocity asked who Tarn really was and just before the actual unmasking.
*Damus's name is derived from the historical figure {{w|Nostradamus}}.<ref>[https://twitter.com/jroberts332/status/1058379500898140161 Twitter conversation with James Roberts on 2 November, 2018]</ref>
* According to James Roberts, Damus was forged in the city of, uh, [[Tarn (polity)|Tarn]]. <ref>James Roberts Q&A at TFNation 2017</ref>
* James Roberts has described Tarn as a [[Phase Sixer]]<ref>[https://twitter.com/jroberts332/status/1230022928688910338?lang=en/ James Roberts on Twitter]</ref>; given the fact that Tarn pretty explicitly does his own thing and doesn't follow [[infiltration protocol]], the exact implications of this statement isn't entirely clear. In [[Remembrance Day|''More than Meets the Eye'' #14]], just before the launch of the [[Lost Light]], [[Prowl (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Prowl]] compared Tarn to [[Overlord]] and [[Sixshot]], so it's also likely that this comment is just referring to a specific "power level" and not a direct commentary on his role in the Decepticon army. However, whether or not Tarn have done any of the Phase Sixer's duties during the war we do not know, since the DJD was only created in the middle of the war. In any case, Tarn is considered at the power level of a phase sixer.
*[[Alex Milne]] said in a Facebook interview that his ideal voice for Tarn is [[Keith David]].<ref>[https://www.facebook.com/notes/transformers/transformers-more-than-meets-the-eye-vol-2-alex-milne-interview/395646703838863 Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye vol. 2 Alex Milne interview]</ref>
*Like all non-toy robot [[Kreon]]s in the ''Kre-O'' manga, Kreon Tarn is made from existing ''Kre-O'' parts, but extensively "painted". He uses the [[Ratchet (Kre-O)|Ratchet]] helmet, the [[Megatron (Kre-O)|Megatron]] arm-cannon, and some kind of setup to wear the Bludgeon treads on his back.
*Tarn's design bears a fairly strong resemblance to a piece of concept artwork for ''Transformers: Hero'', the franchise that would eventually evolve into ''[[Transformers Animated (franchise)|Transformers Animated]]''. Alex Milne says he's never seen it before,<ref>[https://twitter.com/markerguru/status/1204197465248931840 Twitter conversation with Alex Milne on 9 December, 2019]</ref> which shouldn't come as much of a surprise; in a franchise that's this big, and that's been around this long, some ideas are good enough to be had twice.
*The [[Perfect Decepticon]]s from ''[[Transformers: Cyberverse (cartoon)|Transformers: Cyberverse]]'' are designed to resemble Tarn.
*Another interesting fact is that Tarn seems to be the only cybertronian who is both an [[outlier]] and a [[Point-One Percenter]].

===Foreign names===
*''Japanese:'' '''Tarn''' (ターン ''Tān'')

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:Anti-Vocationist League]]
[[Category:Decepticon leaders]]
[[Category:IDW (2005) Decepticons]]
[[Category:IDW (2019) Transformers]]
[[Category:Kre-O Decepticons]]
[[Category:Kreons]]
[[Category:Point One Percenters]]
[[Category:TransTech Decepticons]]

Phase Sixer

2021-07-25T11:44:16Z

Mi5FiRE:

:''Phase Sixers are Decepticons from the [[2005 IDW continuity|2005 IDW portion]] of the [[Generation 1 continuity family]].''
[[File:LastStandoftheWreckers2-teleconference.jpg|thumb|upright=1.66]]
When [[Megatron (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Megatron]] finalized the [[Infiltration protocol|phased infiltration process]], he selected three of his [[Warriors Elite]] to become '''Phase Sixers'''. These ultra-powerful 'bots would unleash their destructive powers on worlds that were on the brink of collapse, ravaging them utterly so they could be stripped of resources by the Decepticons.

The three known Phase Six Decepticons are:
*[[Overlord (Masterforce)|Overlord]]
*[[Sixshot (G1)|Sixshot]]
*[[Black Shadow (Victory)|Black Shadow]]

{{quote|Some Cybertronians are markedly more powerful than others: Optimus, Grimlock, Megatron. Fort Max on a good day. I think those are your "once-in-a-generation" bots. But they pale in comparison - all of them - they '''pale''' when compared with Overlord and Sixshot and "[[Tarn (DJD)|Tarn]]".|[[Prowl (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Prowl]] on the power level of Phase Six 'bots, "[[Remembrance Day]]"}}

==Fiction==
===2005 IDW continuity===
While Overlord was fighting a campaign on the world of [[Caldoon 4]], [[Megatron (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Megatron]] summoned him to a tele-conference, announcing to him, Sixshot and Black Shadow that they would be his Phase Sixers. Overlord questioned the plan, refused his orders, and deserted from the Decepticon army, apparently for the sole reason of coercing Megatron to pursue him. This completely and totally failed. He went on to take over Garrus-9 in another attempt to gain Megatron's attention, his reign so sadistic that even the Decepticons under his control were desperate to escape, but the only attention he eventually gained was that of the [[Wrecker]]s. {{storylink|The Transformers: Last Stand of the Wreckers|Last Stand of the Wreckers}}

Sixshot and Black Shadow would go on to perform their duties for many years and came to be feared names among the Autobots.

Among Black Shadow's known battles were his destruction of [[Rigel IV]] and its 3 billion inhabitants, a battle with the [[Wrecker]]s during which he killed three of them and dismembered their leader [[Hyperion (G1)|Hyperion]]; and his massacre of 3,003 members of the Autobots' [[113th Battalion]], an encounter that saw him personally best [[Optimus Prime (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Optimus Prime]] and [[Ultra Magnus (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Ultra Magnus]]. Black Shadow's undoing came when he accepted half a billion [[Shanix]] from the Autobots in exchange for blowing up the Decepticons' fleet of [[Warworld|War Worlds]]. The [[Decepticon Justice Division]] captured, tortured and executed him for the betrayal. {{storylink|Rules of Disengagement (issue)|Rules of Disengagement}}

Sixshot, meanwhile, had many battles of his own, but faced a lonely life as he was feared by foe and comrade alike. On the planet [[Mumu-Obscura]], Sixshot was tempted by an offer to leave the Decepticons and join the [[Reaper]]s, {{storylink|Spotlight: Sixshot}} an offer that would later be repeated on the planet [[Earth]]. Sixshot finally agreed–only to be immediately shut down by Starscream using the verbal "off switch" built into him. {{storylink|Devastation issue 5|Devastation #5}} Sixshot's body was recovered by [[Galvatron (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Galvatron]] {{storylink|Devastation issue 6|Devastation #6}} and used by the [[Dead Universe]] scientist [[Jhiaxus (G2)|Jhiaxus]] as part of his plans for the [[Expansion]]. {{storylink|Spotlight: Doubledealer}} Freed of Jhiaxus's control following the defeat of the Dead Universe crew, Sixshot traded the scientist's technology to Megatron in exchange for his freedom from Phase Sixer duties. {{storylink|Spotlight: Metroplex}}

After the war, [[Prowl (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Prowl]] had a secret plan to pick apart a captured Overlord and find a way they could make ''Autobot'' Phase Sixers in case of trouble. {{storylink|Remembrance Day}}

==Notes==
*In one of the more egregious examples of their odd re-writing of dialogue to incorporate modern Transformers terminology, [[Shout! Factory|Shout! Factory's]] subtitles for the company's DVD release of the ''[[Transformers: The Headmasters (cartoon)|Transformers: The Headmasters]]'' cartoon has [[Sixshot (G1)|Sixshot]] identify himself as a "Phase Six Decepticon officer" in "[[Four Warriors Come out of the Sky]]". This, of course, makes basically no sense, since the infiltration protocol does not exist in Japanese cartoon continuity; in the actual Japanese dialogue, Sixshot refers to himself as a "Destron [[Trypticon (G1)|Dinobase]] Ninja Staff Officer".
*[[Authorial intent|When asked on Twitter]] [[James Roberts]] has described [[Killmaster]], [[Heretech]]<ref>[https://twitter.com/jroberts332/status/791054245810274305 James Roberts about the Warriors Elite and Phase Sixers on Twitter, 25 October 2016.]</ref> and [[Tarn (DJD)|Tarn]]<ref>[https://twitter.com/jroberts332/status/1230022928688910338 James Roberts about Tarn being a Phase Sixer on Twitter, 18 February 2020.]</ref> as Phase Sixers. However, given the context, it seems very likely that he was using "Phase Sixer" in the colloquial sense of "[[ununtrium]]-enhanced superwarrior", rather than the specific role of planet-destroyers that Sixshot, Black Shadow and Overlord were selected for. Although apparently [[Tarn]] has not been ununtrinium enhanced--[[Overlord]] used up the last ununtrinium in the universe, and the scene depicting Tarn's reborn dose not share any similirities with that of Overlord's.
* There are a couple of suggestions that there have been other Phase Sixers before the three named above - at least one of whom met their end at the hands of the [[Decepticon Justice Division]]. In a [[Last Stand of the Wreckers issue 3|conversation on Garrus 9]], Shockwave informs Sixshot, "You're not the first phase-sixer to bait Megatron". And later on, when Tarn [[Rules of Disengagement (issue)|ends Black Shadow's life]], he first laments Phase Sixers' "tedious tendency to rebel" and then shortly afterwards tells his team, "Stand back, everyone. Phases Sixers have a tendency to -" just as Black Shadow goes VOMF. If he hadn't taken a Phase Sixer down before, how could Tarn know what would happen?

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:Decepticon subgroups]]
[[Category:IDW (2005) subgroups]]

Tarn (G1)

2021-07-25T11:34:38Z

Mi5FiRE:

{{factions|decepticon}}
{{disambigm|Tarn (polity)|Glitch (disambiguation)}}
:''Tarn is a [[Decepticon]] from the [[2005 IDW continuity|2005 IDW portion]] of the [[Generation 1 continuity family|Generation 1]] [[continuity family]].''

[[File:MTMTE Tarn Alex Milne.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|He kills you with culture... and also ''violence''.]]
'''Tarn''' is an eloquent [[Decepticon]]. He enjoys nothing more than playing beautiful [[The Empyrean Suite|music]] as he waxes poetic quoting ''[[Towards Peace]]'' and other philosophical works by [[Megatron (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Megatron]]. He tends to indulge these pleasures at the same time he's using his [[outlier]] ability to cause the [[Decepticon Justice Division]]'s latest transgressor's spark to self-destruct. The leader of the D.J.D., Tarn epitomizes the mentality of the team. He is beyond zealous in his devotion to Megatron's cause, going so far as to emboss the Decepticon [[insignia]] onto his own faceplate. No traitor, no coward is capable of escaping his team.

Despite appearances, Tarn is a mess of contradictions. Viewing himself as the central pillar of the D.J.D., he can be as brutally violent as any other Decepticon, but views himself as a bureaucrat and his team as his administration. He believes his actions are entirely justified, yet sometimes his thoughts are a constant stream of self-denigration. He works hard to run a tight but fair ship, and is not above taking in an open-minded, needy stray. On the other hand, for all his thoughts of sophistication and control, Tarn can go from affable to life-threatening at the least provocation. His addictive tendencies have led to him burning out his original [[transformation cog]] years ago, and his reliance on the power-enhancing [[Nucleon (substance)|Nuke]] can lead to his losing himself to the lust for violence. And have no doubt that while he may try and convince himself otherwise, Tarn is a truly sociopathic murderer. Ultimately whether Tarn is a monster or not is irrelevant. His utter devotion to the Decepticon cause means he will ensure the fear of Megatron is put into any that would consider abandoning their noble goals. His unswerving loyalty to Megatron and to the Decepticon Cause is what brought him to his gruesome end.

{{quote|If you want to break someone—mentally, physically, emotionally—wait until they're happy. Let them live and love and thrive. Once they recognize the value of a life well lived... THAT'S when you move in for the kill. Because you can't take anything from someone who has nothing to lose.|Tarn|"[[The Dying of the Light Part 2: The Sun in Flight|The Sun in Flight]]" teaser}}

==Fiction==
===2005 IDW continuity===
{{First|[[How Ratchet Got His Hands Back|''More than Meets the Eye'' #5]] (shadowy image); [[Rules of Disengagement (issue)|#7]] (full appearance, as Tarn); [[Shadowplay, Part 2: Patternism|#10]] (as Glitch)}}

[[File:Ratchet glitch shadowplay.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|Glitch is [[Wolverine (Marvel)|the one with the claws]].]]
'''Damus''' was [[reproduction|forged]], born an exceptionally powerful [[Point One Percenter]] {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} and an [[Outlier (group)|outlier]] who possessed the ability to render non-sentient machinery inoperative by touching it, but with one drawback: the power hurt him every time he used it. Before the [[Great War (G1)|war]], Damus attended the [[Jhiaxian Academy of Advanced Technology]] where they possibly attempted to analyze his brain-wave patterns and kept his outlier status hidden from the [[Senate]] and [[Functionist Council]].

At some point, he crossed the [[Senate]] and was subjected to [[empurata]]: his hands and head replaced to mark him out as someone to shun. After that, to tie in with his power, he started to call himself '''Glitch'''. {{storylink|Shadowplay, Part 2: Patternism|Patternism}}

When [[Optimus Prime (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Orion Pax]] devised a plan to steal a bomb disguised as the [[Matrix of Leadership|Matrix]] from [[Nominus Prime]]'s corpse his [[Shockwave (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Senator friend]] recruited Damus, [[Windcharger (G1)|Windcharger]], and [[Skids (G1)|Skids]] from the Academy to participate in the heist. Damus's part in the plan was to deactivate the deflector beams above the [[Primal Basilica]] and despite a slight hitch when Damus accidentally jammed Skids's grappling hook by touching his arm, the plan succeeded. {{storylink|Shadowplay (Conclusion): An Intimate Beheading|An Intimate Beheading}}

Following Shockwave's capture and brainwashing by the [[Senate]], the Outliers stuck with Orion Pax and aided him in defending a [[hot spot (phenomenon)|hot spot]] in [[Alyon]] from [[Sentinel Prime (G1)|Sentinel Prime]]'s forces. By this time Damus had gotten replacement hands and learned to use his power from a distance, utilizing it to break down [[Elite Guard]] vehicles from afar. With help from a group of time travelers from the ''[[Lost Light]]'' of the future, the group took down a weapons platform sent to irradiate the hot spot's [[spark]]s, then had their memories of the travelers wiped by [[Chromedome (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Chromedome]].

[[File:PermanentRevolution-Backwards.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.2|[[Keith David|"And what would you have your Justice Division do?"]]]]

During the whole affair, Orion Pax recommended reading Megatron's treatises around Glitch: "powerful stuff," he said. Considering Megatron's stated reasons for converting him to the Decepticon cause, we can only assume that he listened a little too well. {{storylink|Elegant Chaos Part 1: All Our Parlous Yesterdays|All Our Parlous Yesterdays}}

Exactly how and when Damus joined the Decepticons is unknown, but Megatron would later claim he had deliberately "corrupted" Tarn to hurt ''someone'' and prove a point. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 3: Your Fierce Tears|Your Fierce Tears}} Damus joined early enough to be at the beginning of Megatron's march across Cybertron. Rebuilt under the supervision of [[Lobe]], {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} Damus's power and endurance was considered by [[Prowl (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Prowl]] to put him on the same level as a [[Phase Sixer]]. {{storylink|Remembrance Day}} His mask was taken as a sign of Decepticon supremacy but, at least so he told himself, it was really so nobody would notice when he closed his eyes around Decepticon brutality. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} In one particular battle during the war, Damus tussled with [[Thunder Clash|Thunderclash]]. {{storylink|Shining Armor issue 3|Shining Armor #3}}

[[File:SpeakMemory2-results.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|"How's it hanging? ... Oh... oh. That dude is ''really'' hanging there. My bad." "Stop it, you uncultured mech. You came here to report, not make puns."]]

Damus became commandant of [[Grindcore (prison)|Grindcore prison]], where he became associated with "[[The Empyrean Suite]]", playing it at maximum volume to drown out the screams of the prisoners he executed via smelting. {{storylink|Speak, Memory: Part 1}} In this, he was trying to deliberately bastardize a song composed by [[Eucryphia]] to celebrate [[Prima]] and the [[Citadel of Light]]. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} One of his prisoners, soon after the prison's smelting chamber had malfunctioned, was his old comrade Skids. Damus bargained with Skids to fix it, telling him it was a "teleport chamber" and fifty prisoners would be released from Grindcore for this, and was able to con Skids into thinking that he could be trusted. Skids was relaxed enough around Damus to take praise genuinely and push for more freed prisoners later.

In the end, Damus sent all fifty prisoners to the "teleporation chamber" and cruelly forced Skids to watch as it was used to execute a group of prisoners, including Skids's cellmate [[Quark]], melting them down into raw materials for use in the creation of [[M.T.O.]]s. Damus deliberately used the event to cripple Skids' religious faith. {{storylink|Speak, Memory: Part 1}} {{storylink|Speak, Memory! (Part 2)}}

After Damus became leader of the D.J.D. as "Tarn" (and would never again use his old name), his powers developed to the point where he could shut down sentient machines using his voice alone. Under him, the group became ''very'' focused on paperwork: the [[Decepticon Empire]] required good administration, in his view. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} When [[Grimlock (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Grimlock]], who had briefly defected to the Decepticons, {{storylink|Animals}} {{storylink|Hasbro Heroes Sourcebook issue 2|Grimlock profile}} returned to the Autobot ranks, Megatron was so incensed by the betrayal that he ordered the DJD to bump the Dynobot leader up to the top of the list. In a subsequent battle against Grimlock, Tarn had his face badly mangled by his opponent. {{storylink|The Ties That Bind (issue)|The Ties That Bind}}

Some two hundred years ago, Tarn was present at Megatron's current command center when [[Starscream (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Starscream]] returned from a botched mission on [[Xetaxxis]]. {{storylink|Shining Armor issue 5|Shining Armor #5}}

[[File:LL14-tarn-unmasked.jpg|thumb|There's an ironic joke about [[empurata]] in here if someone cares to find it.]]

Some time later, the DJD established a base on the world of [[Messatine]] in order to obtain the "Nuke" superfuel there. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} Tarn coerced [[Pharma (G1)|Pharma]], head surgeon of the planet's Autobot medical facility [[Delphi]], into helping feed his addiction by supplying him with an ever-increasing number of transformation cogs from deceased patients, in exchange for the hospital being unmolested by his team. Pharma would eventually cut off Tarn's supply by orchestrating the facility's shutdown. {{storylink|How Ratchet Got His Hands Back}}

In 2009, following the [[Surge (event)|Surge]], Tarn led the D.J.D. to [[Garrus-9]] to find and eliminate his old teacher Shockwave, who was now the most wanted Decepticon on [[The List|the D.J.D's master hit list]]. After intercepting his vessel, however, they discovered that Shockwave had prepared for this eventuality by staffing his ship with crewmembers who were also on the list, in the hopes of bartering their lives for his. Tarn opted to ignore the offer, using his voice to slowly talk the old Senator to death, but Shockwave was able to blast the radio in time. When Shockwave's backup arrived in the form of [[Bludgeon (G1)|Bludgeon]] and the [[Pretender Monster|Monstructor Six]], the DJD retreated. {{storylink|The Ties That Bind (issue)|The Ties That Bind}}

[[File:Tarn transforms MTMTE08.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.2|He's got friends on the other side.]]

Though the war formally ended in 2012, Tarn and his group refused to give up the cause—indeed, they would only deign to stand down when Megatron personally commanded it—and continued to hunt down those Decepticons that had betrayed the cause and hadn't yet returned to Cybertron. {{storylink|Scavengers (Part 2): Who's Afraid of the DJD?|Who's Afraid of the DJD?}} Informed by Decepticon spy [[Brainstorm (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Brainstorm]] that high-priority target [[Overlord (Masterforce)|Overlord]] was aboard the starship ''[[Lost Light]]'', Tarn and the D.J.D. continued to work through their list of offenders as they waited for Brainstorm to drop the ship's shielding so they could pick up Overlord's signal. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} One such unfortunate was [[Black Shadow (Victory)|Black Shadow]], whom Tarn explosively finished off with his deadly voice, after which the team set course of the planet [[Clemency]] to hunt down Decepticon deserter [[Fulcrum]]. {{storylink|Rules of Disengagement (issue)|Rules of Disengagement}} Arriving on Clemency, the team discovered a mysterious [[stasis pod|stasis tube]] awaiting them; when Tarn investigated, he found it contained a deranged, [[circuit speeder]]-enhanced [[Grimlock (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Grimlock]], unleashed by Fulcrum and his new allies, the [[Scavenger (group)|Scavengers]]. Tarn was soon able to subdue the brain-damaged [[Dinobot (G1)|Dinobot]], but was then crushed beneath the foot of a [[Cybernought]] battle-mech that [[Crankcase (G1)|Crankcase]] had activated. Tarn recovered in time to hear Fulcrum deliver a speech to all assembled about Decepticon ideals before apparently committing suicide. At that point, [[Kaon (DJD)|Kaon]] detected Overlord's long-awaited signal, and Tarn ordered the D.J.D. to head out—but not before warning the surviving Scavengers that their names had now made it onto [[The List]]. {{storylink|Scavengers (Part 2): Who's Afraid of the DJD?|Who's Afraid of the DJD?}}

Tracking Overlord's signal, the D.J.D. found the ''Lost Light''—which was, unbeknownst to Tarn and his team, actually one of ''two'' versions of the ship created by a malfunction of its [[quantum generator]]s—near the planet [[Ofsted XVII]]. Despite having promised Brainstorm they would not harm any of the crew, the discovery that the traitor [[Drift (G1)|Deadlock]] was aboard the ship them set the D.J.D. off, and after dealing with him, they set about murdering the rest of the ship. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} Tarn personally destroyed [[Ultra Magnus (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Ultra Magnus]], [[Swerve (G1)|Swerve]], and [[Cyclonus (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Cyclonus]], and forced a large portion of the crew to transform before executing them, leaving their transformation cogs warm for location and harvesting. Eventually, Tarn removed a still-restrained and suicidal Overlord's head with a chainsaw, and the D.J.D. left the ship. {{storylink|slaughterhouse}} {{storylink|slaughterhouse Part 2: The Road Not Taken|The Road Not Taken}}

[[File:ThePermanentRevolution-goingtowar.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|'''Cause when push'' ''Comes to shove'' ''I will send a fully armed battalion'' ''To remind you of my love'' <s>for the cause</s>]]

Sometime during the months that followed, Kaon spontaneously began [[universal killswitch|writhing in agony]] right in front of Tarn, who tried to get his teammate to tell him what he could do to help, before the mysterious effect subsided. {{storylink|Remain in Light 4 of 5: Arm the Lonely|Arm the Lonely}} Also during this time, the D.J.D. welcomed a new member—[[Nickel]], last survivor of a Cybertronian colony wiped out by the [[Black Block Consortia]]. At Nickel's insistence, they returned to Ofsted XVII to salvage the quantum engines from the derelict ''Lost Light''. They wound up arriving in the middle of a battle between the Consortia and the [[Galactic Council]], who teamed up against the Cybertronians. Under attack by both sides and faced with additional enemy reinforcements, Tarn was forced to retreat, leaving Vos and Kaon behind. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} Tarn eventually gifted Nickel a phone onto which he recorded a message she could use to paralyze people who were threatening her. {{storylink|Kill All 'Cons}}

The diminished D.J.D. returned to their duties, though Tarn began to weary of the work. After apprehending the [[Sparkeater (creature)|Sparkeater]]-worshipping [[Blip]], Tarn was about to end his life using his voice, until Blip used his last words to demand that Tarn remove his mask. Affronted, Tarn allowed [[Helex (DJD)|Helex]] and [[Tesarus (DJD)|Tesarus]] to finish Blip instead, averting his gaze beneath his mask. Tarn subsequently ordered performance reviews for the team, and nearly came to blows with Tesarus when he implied that abandoning Vos and Kaon was not the Decepticon thing to do. Calming himself, Tarn explained that they were returning to Ofsted XVII again in order to recover their bodies, but was interrupted by Helex's announcement that Vos and Kaon had returned to the ship safe, sound, and with something unbelievable: a postwar edition of ''[[Towards Peace]]'' that revealed Megatron himself had defected from the Decepticons.

His world shattered by this discovery, Tarn had the D.J.D. return to Messatine, where he attempted to fatally overdose on Nuke. Finding even the sensation of dying disappointing, Tarn opened his eyes to see a distraught Nickel pressed against the glass of his fueling capsule. The sight of her triggered a revelation for Tarn: she was a 'bot who had experienced first-hand the threat the predominantly-organic universe posed to Cybertronians, and who had fully embraced the Decepticon cause despite living her life outside of the war. The cause, Tarn now realized, was bigger than any one 'bot—bigger than Megatron. Galvanized, Tarn set up a meeting with the rogue Decepticon warlord [[Deathsaurus (Victory)|Deathsaurus]] aboard his stolen [[Warworld]]. Knowing full well he was on the D.J.D.'s list, Deathsaurus pre-emptively attacked Tarn upon his arrival, even deactivating his audio receptors to protect himself from Tarn's voice, but Tarn was able to communicate with him and his troops through [[inter-Decepticon radio]] and explained the reason for his presence: he wished them to ally with him, in return for their being taken off The List. Deathsaurus agreed on the condition that Tarn kill the rest of the D.J.D., which Tarn refused to do—which was the response Deathsaurus had been hoping for. With their alliance cemented, Tarn declared their new objective: kill the traitorous Megatron and all of his allies! {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}}

[[File:TarnAltMode.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|left|I'm about to drop the hammer and dispense some indiscriminate justice!]]

The allied forces of Tarn and Deathsaurus proceeded to attack the [[Necroworld|Necrobot's world]], killing [[Mortilus|its sole inhabitant]] and using his machinery to broadcast a message that lured Megatron and all those aboard the ''Lost Light'' sympathetic to him down to the planet. When they arrived, the villains shot them down and cornered them in the Necrobot's fortress. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light: (1) How Bright Their Frail Deeds|How Bright Their Frail Deeds}} As an act of indirect torture, Tarn had their forces pull back, warning Megatron and his comrades that they would return at sunset, leaving them to stew in their own fear. Returning to the ''[[Peaceful Tyranny]]'', Tarn spent the time showing off his collection of Megatron's writings to Deathsaurus, and discussing tactics with his men; he did not take Tesarus's concerns about the Necrobot's fortress's storm shield seriously, but the discussion was interrupted by a call on Tarn's personal communicator from Megatron himself. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 2: The Sun in Flight|The Sun in Flight}}

[[File:YourFierceTears-byebyekaon.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|Give me your...you know the drill.]]

Tarn agreed to a meeting with Megatron alone, whereupon his former leader agreed to surrender in exchange for the rest of the Autobots being allowed to go free. Saddened and disgusted to truly see with his own eyes how far his idol had fallen, Tarn beat him to within an inch of his life, and was just about to deliver the killing shot when [[Overlord (Masterforce)|Overlord]] suddenly appeared, insisting that it was his right to end Megatron's life. Both refused to stand down, resulting in a bickering battle between the two that gave Megatron the chance to escape. Realizing their folly, Tarn and Overlord agreed to a truce, though Overlord continued to needle Tarn all the way back to the ''Peaceful Tyranny''. The final straw came when a distraught Kaon arrived with the news that the Autobots had kidnapped the D.J.D.'s [[Dominus Ambus|pet sparkeater]]; determined to cut out of both the hearts of himself and his men the compassion that he saw as Megatron's downfall, Tarn slew Kaon on the spot, tearing his head from his shoulders. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 3: Your Fierce Tears|Your Fierce Tears}}

At sundown, Tarn led the Decepticons in their attack, {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 4: At Close of Day|At Close of Day}} playing "The Empyrean Suite" across the battlefield as battle commenced. He initially hung back with Deathsaurus, but joined the fight in earnest after a temporary power-up acquired by the Autobots wore off, ripping [[Ravage (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Ravage]] clean in half. Unfortunately, that turned out to be just the thing to bring Megatron out onto the battlefield, cutting swathes through the Decepticon troops. Tarn surreptitiously ordered the D.J.D. to retreat, whilst demanding Deathsaurus's troops enact a suicidal assault on Megatron. When the ex-Decepticon's new fusion cannon was destroyed, he unexpectedly sunk to his knees in panicked defeat, and Tarn and Overlord moved to strike the final blow together. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 5: Rage, Rage|Rage, Rage}}

[[File:mtmte55 goodbye tarn.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.4|You will die alone. Unmourned. And unloved.]]
Their shots, however, were reflected by the sudden activation of a forcefield by Megatron. Whilst Overlord and Deathsaurus abandoned the planet, unwilling to waste their time and troops respectively on Megatron, Tarn and the other remaining members of the D.J.D. assaulted the forcefield until they could finally force their way in. Things went very badly wrong after that, as soon as the D.J.D. were all inside Megatron rose to his feet and chided Tarn, ripping the D.J.D. leader's fusion cannon off in disgust. With dawning horror the D.J.D. realised everything was all according to Megatron's plan–after years of study, he had finally managed to interlink his systems with a black hole to harvest [[antimatter]], and he had no intention of letting any of them leave alive. With his former enforcers now trapped, Megatron tore through them with tendrils of antimatter, speaking their true names at the moments of their deaths. Tarn was saved for last, his mask ripped off as Megatron called him by his previous name: "Glitch". Tarn first begged for Megatron to be "reasonable", then tried fake bravado, just as many of his own victims had done... and with as little success.

Completing his denouncement of his former enforcer, Megatron informed Damus that "Everything you did was for nothing" and obliterated him with antimatter. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 6: Do Not Go Gentle|Do Not Go Gentle}}

Much later, when Nickel was on the verge of being killed by [[Scorponok (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Scorponok]], she used Tarn's voicemail message to paralyze the ex-Decepticon, allowing her and the [[Scavenger (group)|Scavengers]] to escape. {{storylink|Kill All 'Cons}}
{{-}}

====The Functionist Universe====
[[File:This Machine Kills Fascists-Functionist Glitch.jpg|thumb|"There must always be a Megatron."]]
Glitch was amongst a group of [[Anti-Vocationist League]] members who attended a secret meeting beneath [[Nova Point]]. There, he listened to the universally-displaced Megatron speak about how to fight the [[Functionist Council]] for the goal of "peace through empathy". {{storylink|Dissolution Part 6: This Machine Kills Fascists|This Machine Kills Fascists}}

===''Kre-O'' online manga===
[[File:KreO-webcomic-9-Tarn.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.6]]
Tarn was part of [[Bludgeon (Kre-O)|Bludgeon]]'s forces when they uncovered the [[Red Bucket]]. {{storylink|Treasure Competition! Defeat with Block Power!}}

{{-}}

===''TransTech''===
An [[Lowtech|Offworlder]] in [[Axiom Nexus]], Tarn was a judge of ''[[Cybertron's Got Talent]]'' in the wake of [[Ego (TransTech)|Ego]]'s death. Tarn enjoyed calling out sub-par transformations as part of his judging. {{storylink|Andromeda - Axiom Nexus News Reporter|Andromeda - Axiom Nexus News, 2015/05/14}}

===An Arcee Sort of Day===
After the Great War ended, Damus joined a [[Unicron/Generation 1|Unicron]] cult, warning a passing [[Arcee (G1)|Arcee]] that the world was ending. {{storylink|An Arcee Sort of Day}}

===2019 IDW continuity===
Damus was enjoying a drug den when [[Nightbeat (G1)|Nightbeat]] kicked down the door and requested both calm and [[Sixshot (G1)|Sixshot]]'s squad from the [[War of the Threefold Spark]]. {{storylink|The Change In Your Nature Part One}}
{{-}}

==Games==
===''Transformers Legends''===
Tarn and the rest of the DJD pursued Black Shadow for taking bribes from the Autobots. The DJD found their target hiding on planet Clemency, and dispatched them with extreme prejudice as Tarn set course for their next assignment. {{storylink|Rules of Disengagement (Legends)|Rules of Disengagement}}
{{-}}

==Merchandise==
===Flame Toys===
[[File:FlameToysTarn.jpg|upright=1.66|thumb|"You'll suffer till the end of time, enduring tortures, most of which rhyme, trapped forever here in Robot Hell!"]]
*'''Tarn''' (August [[2018]])
**''Accessories'': mask, 2 fusion cannons, 2 back cannons, clean mask (exclusive), 2 vocal effector cannons (exclusive)

:Produced by [[Flame Toys]] as part of their ''Kuro Kara Kuri'' line, Tarn is a detailed non-transforming action figure featuring [[die-cast]] parts and LEDs in his head, chest, and legs. He comes with two fusion cannons that can be mounted on his arm or combined into one giant handheld weapon, two guns that attach to his back and a removable mask. If purchased via D4toys.com, SEN-TI-DEN Hong Kong, or events attended by Flame Toys, he also includes an alternate mask without scars and two speakers that can replace the back guns.

*'''Tarn (Power Burst ver.)''' ([[July 26]], [[2019]])
:Debuted by Flame Toys at ACGHK 2019, "Tarn (Power Burst ver.)" is a chrome-plated redeco of the above figure, limited to 300 pieces: 200 at ACGHK 2019 and 100 at D4toys.com.
{{-}}

==Notes==
[[File:Tarn BlackShadow RulesofDisengagement.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|left|"What are you gonna do, talk me to death?" "Yup"]]
[[File: Tfhero_tarn_lookalike.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|I don't really see it, to be honest.]]
*Tarn was also mentioned as a [[phase sixer]] by [https://twitter.com/jroberts332/status/1230022928688910338?lang=en/ James Roberts] on Twitter.
*Tarn is the only cybertronian who is a [[Point One Percenter]] AND an [[outlier]] at the same time.
*[[Alex Milne]] said in a Facebook interview that his ideal voice for Tarn is [[Keith David]].<ref>[https://www.facebook.com/notes/transformers/transformers-more-than-meets-the-eye-vol-2-alex-milne-interview/395646703838863 Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye vol. 2 Alex Milne interview]</ref>
*Like all non-toy robot [[Kreon]]s in the ''Kre-O'' manga, Kreon Tarn is made from existing ''Kre-O'' parts, but extensively "painted". He uses the [[Ratchet (Kre-O)|Ratchet]] helmet, the [[Megatron (Kre-O)|Megatron]] arm-cannon, and some kind of setup to wear the Bludgeon treads on his back.
*For some time, the popular speculation among the readership of ''More than Meets the Eye'' was that Tarn had originally been [[Roller (IDW)|Roller]]. [[Elegant Chaos Part 1: All Our Parlous Yesterdays#Other trivia|''More than Meets the Eye'' #36]] dropped a number of clues to further this theory before the actual revelation in [[The Dying of the Light Part 6: Do Not Go Gentle|issue #55]], which revealed these to be nothing more than red herrings. James Roberts cheekily had Roller reveal himself as still alive and intact on the page right after Velocity asked who Tarn really was and just before the actual unmasking.
*Damus's city of origin was never revealed in fiction, but was stated by [[James Roberts]] to be... Tarn.<ref>James Roberts Q&A at TFNation 2017</ref>
*Tarn's design bears a fairly strong resemblance to a piece of concept artwork for ''Transformers: Hero'', or what would eventually be developed into ''[[Transformers Animated (franchise)|Transformers Animated]]''. Alex Milne says he's never seen it before,<ref>[https://twitter.com/markerguru/status/1204197465248931840 Twitter conversation with Alex Milne on 9 December, 2019]</ref> which shouldn't come as much of a surprise; in a franchise that's this big, and that's been around this long, some ideas are good enough to be had twice.
*Not only does he wear the Decepticon insignia on his face, his entire torso appears designed to evoke it too.
*Damus's name is derived from {{w|Nostradamus}}, a historical figure tied to prophecy.<ref>[https://twitter.com/jroberts332/status/1058379500898140161 Twitter conversation with James Roberts on 2 November, 2018]</ref>
*The [[Perfect Decepticon]]s from ''[[Transformers: Cyberverse (cartoon)|Transformers: Cyberverse]]'' are designed to resemble Tarn.

===Foreign names===
*''Japanese:'' '''Tarn''' (ターン ''Tān'')

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:Anti-Vocationist League]]
[[Category:Decepticon leaders]]
[[Category:IDW (2005) Decepticons]]
[[Category:IDW (2019) Transformers]]
[[Category:Kre-O Decepticons]]
[[Category:Kreons]]
[[Category:Point One Percenters]]
[[Category:TransTech Decepticons]]

Tarn (G1)

2021-07-21T14:36:16Z

Mi5FiRE:

{{factions|decepticon}}
{{disambigm|Tarn (polity)|Glitch (disambiguation)}}
:''Tarn is a [[Decepticon]] from the [[2005 IDW continuity|2005 IDW portion]] of the [[Generation 1 continuity family|Generation 1]] [[continuity family]].''

[[File:MTMTE Tarn Alex Milne.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|He kills you with culture... and also ''violence''.]]
'''Tarn''' is an eloquent [[Decepticon]]. He enjoys nothing more than playing beautiful [[The Empyrean Suite|music]] as he waxes poetic quoting ''[[Towards Peace]]'' and other philosophical works by [[Megatron (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Megatron]]. He tends to indulge these pleasures at the same time he's using his specially modulated vocal processor to cause the [[Decepticon Justice Division]]'s latest transgressor's spark to self-destruct. The leader of the D.J.D., Tarn epitomizes the mentality of the team. He is beyond zealous in his devotion to Megatron's cause, going so far as to emboss the Decepticon [[insignia]] onto his own faceplate. No traitor, no coward is capable of escaping his team.

Despite appearances, Tarn is a mess of contradictions. Viewing himself as the central pillar of the D.J.D., he can be as brutally violent as any other Decepticon, but views himself as a bureaucrat and his team as his administration. He believes his actions are entirely justified, yet sometimes his thoughts are a constant stream of self-denigration. He works hard to run a tight but fair ship, and is not above taking in an open-minded, needy stray. On the other hand, for all his thoughts of sophistication and control, Tarn can go from affable to life-threatening at the least provocation. His addictive tendencies have led to him burning out his original [[transformation cog]] years ago, and his reliance on the power-enhancing [[Nucleon (substance)|Nuke]] can lead to his losing himself to the lust for violence. And have no doubt that while he may try and convince himself otherwise, Tarn is a truly sociopathic murderer. Ultimately whether Tarn is a monster or not is irrelevant. His utter devotion to the Decepticon cause means he will ensure the fear of Megatron is put into any that would consider abandoning their noble goals.

{{quote|If you want to break someone—mentally, physically, emotionally—wait until they're happy. Let them live and love and thrive. Once they recognize the value of a life well lived... THAT'S when you move in for the kill. Because you can't take anything from someone who has nothing to lose.|Tarn|"[[The Dying of the Light Part 2: The Sun in Flight|The Sun in Flight]]" teaser}}

==Fiction==
===2005 IDW continuity===
{{First|[[How Ratchet Got His Hands Back|''More than Meets the Eye'' #5]] (shadowy image); [[Rules of Disengagement (issue)|#7]] (full appearance, as Tarn); [[Shadowplay, Part 2: Patternism|#10]] (as Glitch)}}

[[File:Ratchet glitch shadowplay.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|Glitch is [[Wolverine (Marvel)|the one with the claws]].]]
'''Damus''' was [[reproduction|forged]], born an exceptionally powerful [[Point One Percenter]] {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} and an [[Outlier (group)|outlier]] who possessed the ability to render non-sentient machinery inoperative by touching it, but with one drawback: the power hurt him every time he used it. Before the [[Great War (G1)|war]], Damus attended the [[Jhiaxian Academy of Advanced Technology]] where they possibly attempted to analyze his brain-wave patterns and kept his outlier status hidden from the [[Senate]] and [[Functionist Council]].

At some point, he crossed the [[Senate]] and was subjected to [[empurata]]: his hands and head replaced to mark him out as someone to shun. After that, to tie in with his power, he started to call himself '''Glitch'''. {{storylink|Shadowplay, Part 2: Patternism|Patternism}}

When [[Optimus Prime (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Orion Pax]] devised a plan to steal a bomb disguised as the [[Matrix of Leadership|Matrix]] from [[Nominus Prime]]'s corpse his [[Shockwave (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Senator friend]] recruited Damus, [[Windcharger (G1)|Windcharger]], and [[Skids (G1)|Skids]] from the Academy to participate in the heist. Damus's part in the plan was to deactivate the deflector beams above the [[Primal Basilica]] and despite a slight hitch when Damus accidentally jammed Skids's grappling hook by touching his arm, the plan succeeded. {{storylink|Shadowplay (Conclusion): An Intimate Beheading|An Intimate Beheading}}

Following Shockwave's capture and brainwashing by the [[Senate]], the Outliers stuck with Orion Pax and aided him in defending a [[hot spot (phenomenon)|hot spot]] in [[Alyon]] from [[Sentinel Prime (G1)|Sentinel Prime]]'s forces. By this time Damus had gotten replacement hands and learned to use his power from a distance, utilizing it to break down [[Elite Guard]] vehicles from afar. With help from a group of time travelers from the ''[[Lost Light]]'' of the future, the group took down a weapons platform sent to irradiate the hot spot's [[spark]]s, then had their memories of the travelers wiped by [[Chromedome (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Chromedome]].

[[File:PermanentRevolution-Backwards.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.2|[[Keith David|"And what would you have your Justice Division do?"]]]]

During the whole affair, Orion Pax recommended reading Megatron's treatises around Glitch: "powerful stuff," he said. Considering Megatron's stated reasons for converting him to the Decepticon cause, we can only assume that he listened a little too well. {{storylink|Elegant Chaos Part 1: All Our Parlous Yesterdays|All Our Parlous Yesterdays}}

Exactly how and when Damus joined the Decepticons is unknown, but Megatron would later claim he had deliberately "corrupted" Tarn to hurt ''someone'' and prove a point. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 3: Your Fierce Tears|Your Fierce Tears}} Damus joined early enough to be at the beginning of Megatron's march across Cybertron. Rebuilt under the supervision of [[Lobe]], {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} Damus's power and endurance was considered by [[Prowl (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Prowl]] to put him on the same level as a [[Phase Sixer]]. {{storylink|Remembrance Day}} His mask was taken as a sign of Decepticon supremacy but, at least so he told himself, it was really so nobody would notice when he closed his eyes around Decepticon brutality. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} In one particular battle during the war, Damus tussled with [[Thunder Clash|Thunderclash]]. {{storylink|Shining Armor issue 3|Shining Armor #3}}

[[File:SpeakMemory2-results.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|"How's it hanging? ... Oh... oh. That dude is ''really'' hanging there. My bad." "Stop it, you uncultured mech. You came here to report, not make puns."]]

Damus became commandant of [[Grindcore (prison)|Grindcore prison]], where he became associated with "[[The Empyrean Suite]]", playing it at maximum volume to drown out the screams of the prisoners he executed via smelting. {{storylink|Speak, Memory: Part 1}} In this, he was trying to deliberately bastardize a song composed by [[Eucryphia]] to celebrate [[Prima]] and the [[Citadel of Light]]. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} One of his prisoners, soon after the prison's smelting chamber had malfunctioned, was his old comrade Skids. Damus bargained with Skids to fix it, telling him it was a "teleport chamber" and fifty prisoners would be released from Grindcore for this, and was able to con Skids into thinking that he could be trusted. Skids was relaxed enough around Damus to take praise genuinely and push for more freed prisoners later.

In the end, Damus sent all fifty prisoners to the "teleporation chamber" and cruelly forced Skids to watch as it was used to execute a group of prisoners, including Skids's cellmate [[Quark]], melting them down into raw materials for use in the creation of [[M.T.O.]]s. Damus deliberately used the event to cripple Skids' religious faith. {{storylink|Speak, Memory: Part 1}} {{storylink|Speak, Memory! (Part 2)}}

After Damus became leader of the D.J.D. as "Tarn" (and would never again use his old name), his powers developed to the point where he could shut down sentient machines using his voice alone. Under him, the group became ''very'' focused on paperwork: the [[Decepticon Empire]] required good administration, in his view. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} When [[Grimlock (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Grimlock]], who had briefly defected to the Decepticons, {{storylink|Animals}} {{storylink|Hasbro Heroes Sourcebook issue 2|Grimlock profile}} returned to the Autobot ranks, Megatron was so incensed by the betrayal that he ordered the DJD to bump the Dynobot leader up to the top of the list. In a subsequent battle against Grimlock, Tarn had his face badly mangled by his opponent. {{storylink|The Ties That Bind (issue)|The Ties That Bind}}

Some two hundred years ago, Tarn was present at Megatron's current command center when [[Starscream (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Starscream]] returned from a botched mission on [[Xetaxxis]]. {{storylink|Shining Armor issue 5|Shining Armor #5}}

[[File:LL14-tarn-unmasked.jpg|thumb|There's an ironic joke about [[empurata]] in here if someone cares to find it.]]

Some time later, the DJD established a base on the world of [[Messatine]] in order to obtain the "Nuke" superfuel there. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} Tarn coerced [[Pharma (G1)|Pharma]], head surgeon of the planet's Autobot medical facility [[Delphi]], into helping feed his addiction by supplying him with an ever-increasing number of transformation cogs from deceased patients, in exchange for the hospital being unmolested by his team. Pharma would eventually cut off Tarn's supply by orchestrating the facility's shutdown. {{storylink|How Ratchet Got His Hands Back}}

In 2009, following the [[Surge (event)|Surge]], Tarn led the D.J.D. to [[Garrus-9]] to find and eliminate his old teacher Shockwave, who was now the most wanted Decepticon on [[The List|the D.J.D's master hit list]]. After intercepting his vessel, however, they discovered that Shockwave had prepared for this eventuality by staffing his ship with crewmembers who were also on the list, in the hopes of bartering their lives for his. Tarn opted to ignore the offer, using his voice to slowly talk the old Senator to death, but Shockwave was able to blast the radio in time. When Shockwave's backup arrived in the form of [[Bludgeon (G1)|Bludgeon]] and the [[Pretender Monster|Monstructor Six]], the DJD retreated. {{storylink|The Ties That Bind (issue)|The Ties That Bind}}

[[File:Tarn transforms MTMTE08.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.2|He's got friends on the other side.]]

Though the war formally ended in 2012, Tarn and his group refused to give up the cause—indeed, they would only deign to stand down when Megatron personally commanded it—and continued to hunt down those Decepticons that had betrayed the cause and hadn't yet returned to Cybertron. {{storylink|Scavengers (Part 2): Who's Afraid of the DJD?|Who's Afraid of the DJD?}} Informed by Decepticon spy [[Brainstorm (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Brainstorm]] that high-priority target [[Overlord (Masterforce)|Overlord]] was aboard the starship ''[[Lost Light]]'', Tarn and the D.J.D. continued to work through their list of offenders as they waited for Brainstorm to drop the ship's shielding so they could pick up Overlord's signal. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} One such unfortunate was [[Black Shadow (Victory)|Black Shadow]], whom Tarn explosively finished off with his deadly voice, after which the team set course of the planet [[Clemency]] to hunt down Decepticon deserter [[Fulcrum]]. {{storylink|Rules of Disengagement (issue)|Rules of Disengagement}} Arriving on Clemency, the team discovered a mysterious [[stasis pod|stasis tube]] awaiting them; when Tarn investigated, he found it contained a deranged, [[circuit speeder]]-enhanced [[Grimlock (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Grimlock]], unleashed by Fulcrum and his new allies, the [[Scavenger (group)|Scavengers]]. Tarn was soon able to subdue the brain-damaged [[Dinobot (G1)|Dinobot]], but was then crushed beneath the foot of a [[Cybernought]] battle-mech that [[Crankcase (G1)|Crankcase]] had activated. Tarn recovered in time to hear Fulcrum deliver a speech to all assembled about Decepticon ideals before apparently committing suicide. At that point, [[Kaon (DJD)|Kaon]] detected Overlord's long-awaited signal, and Tarn ordered the D.J.D. to head out—but not before warning the surviving Scavengers that their names had now made it onto [[The List]]. {{storylink|Scavengers (Part 2): Who's Afraid of the DJD?|Who's Afraid of the DJD?}}

Tracking Overlord's signal, the D.J.D. found the ''Lost Light''—which was, unbeknownst to Tarn and his team, actually one of ''two'' versions of the ship created by a malfunction of its [[quantum generator]]s—near the planet [[Ofsted XVII]]. Despite having promised Brainstorm they would not harm any of the crew, the discovery that the traitor [[Drift (G1)|Deadlock]] was aboard the ship them set the D.J.D. off, and after dealing with him, they set about murdering the rest of the ship. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} Tarn personally destroyed [[Ultra Magnus (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Ultra Magnus]], [[Swerve (G1)|Swerve]], and [[Cyclonus (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Cyclonus]], and forced a large portion of the crew to transform before executing them, leaving their transformation cogs warm for location and harvesting. Eventually, Tarn removed a still-restrained and suicidal Overlord's head with a chainsaw, and the D.J.D. left the ship. {{storylink|slaughterhouse}} {{storylink|slaughterhouse Part 2: The Road Not Taken|The Road Not Taken}}

[[File:ThePermanentRevolution-goingtowar.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|'''Cause when push'' ''Comes to shove'' ''I will send a fully armed battalion'' ''To remind you of my love'' <s>for the cause</s>]]

Sometime during the months that followed, Kaon spontaneously began [[universal killswitch|writhing in agony]] right in front of Tarn, who tried to get his teammate to tell him what he could do to help, before the mysterious effect subsided. {{storylink|Remain in Light 4 of 5: Arm the Lonely|Arm the Lonely}} Also during this time, the D.J.D. welcomed a new member—[[Nickel]], last survivor of a Cybertronian colony wiped out by the [[Black Block Consortia]]. At Nickel's insistence, they returned to Ofsted XVII to salvage the quantum engines from the derelict ''Lost Light''. They wound up arriving in the middle of a battle between the Consortia and the [[Galactic Council]], who teamed up against the Cybertronians. Under attack by both sides and faced with additional enemy reinforcements, Tarn was forced to retreat, leaving Vos and Kaon behind. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} Tarn eventually gifted Nickel a phone onto which he recorded a message she could use to paralyze people who were threatening her. {{storylink|Kill All 'Cons}}

The diminished D.J.D. returned to their duties, though Tarn began to weary of the work. After apprehending the [[Sparkeater (creature)|Sparkeater]]-worshipping [[Blip]], Tarn was about to end his life using his voice, until Blip used his last words to demand that Tarn remove his mask. Affronted, Tarn allowed [[Helex (DJD)|Helex]] and [[Tesarus (DJD)|Tesarus]] to finish Blip instead, averting his gaze beneath his mask. Tarn subsequently ordered performance reviews for the team, and nearly came to blows with Tesarus when he implied that abandoning Vos and Kaon was not the Decepticon thing to do. Calming himself, Tarn explained that they were returning to Ofsted XVII again in order to recover their bodies, but was interrupted by Helex's announcement that Vos and Kaon had returned to the ship safe, sound, and with something unbelievable: a postwar edition of ''[[Towards Peace]]'' that revealed Megatron himself had defected from the Decepticons.

His world shattered by this discovery, Tarn had the D.J.D. return to Messatine, where he attempted to fatally overdose on Nuke. Finding even the sensation of dying disappointing, Tarn opened his eyes to see a distraught Nickel pressed against the glass of his fueling capsule. The sight of her triggered a revelation for Tarn: she was a 'bot who had experienced first-hand the threat the predominantly-organic universe posed to Cybertronians, and who had fully embraced the Decepticon cause despite living her life outside of the war. The cause, Tarn now realized, was bigger than any one 'bot—bigger than Megatron. Galvanized, Tarn set up a meeting with the rogue Decepticon warlord [[Deathsaurus (Victory)|Deathsaurus]] aboard his stolen [[Warworld]]. Knowing full well he was on the D.J.D.'s list, Deathsaurus pre-emptively attacked Tarn upon his arrival, even deactivating his audio receptors to protect himself from Tarn's voice, but Tarn was able to communicate with him and his troops through [[inter-Decepticon radio]] and explained the reason for his presence: he wished them to ally with him, in return for their being taken off The List. Deathsaurus agreed on the condition that Tarn kill the rest of the D.J.D., which Tarn refused to do—which was the response Deathsaurus had been hoping for. With their alliance cemented, Tarn declared their new objective: kill the traitorous Megatron and all of his allies! {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}}

[[File:TarnAltMode.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|left|I'm about to drop the hammer and dispense some indiscriminate justice!]]

The allied forces of Tarn and Deathsaurus proceeded to attack the [[Necroworld|Necrobot's world]], killing [[Mortilus|its sole inhabitant]] and using his machinery to broadcast a message that lured Megatron and all those aboard the ''Lost Light'' sympathetic to him down to the planet. When they arrived, the villains shot them down and cornered them in the Necrobot's fortress. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light: (1) How Bright Their Frail Deeds|How Bright Their Frail Deeds}} As an act of indirect torture, Tarn had their forces pull back, warning Megatron and his comrades that they would return at sunset, leaving them to stew in their own fear. Returning to the ''[[Peaceful Tyranny]]'', Tarn spent the time showing off his collection of Megatron's writings to Deathsaurus, and discussing tactics with his men; he did not take Tesarus's concerns about the Necrobot's fortress's storm shield seriously, but the discussion was interrupted by a call on Tarn's personal communicator from Megatron himself. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 2: The Sun in Flight|The Sun in Flight}}

[[File:YourFierceTears-byebyekaon.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|Give me your...you know the drill.]]

Tarn agreed to a meeting with Megatron alone, whereupon his former leader agreed to surrender in exchange for the rest of the Autobots being allowed to go free. Saddened and disgusted to truly see with his own eyes how far his idol had fallen, Tarn beat him to within an inch of his life, and was just about to deliver the killing shot when [[Overlord (Masterforce)|Overlord]] suddenly appeared, insisting that it was his right to end Megatron's life. Both refused to stand down, resulting in a bickering battle between the two that gave Megatron the chance to escape. Realizing their folly, Tarn and Overlord agreed to a truce, though Overlord continued to needle Tarn all the way back to the ''Peaceful Tyranny''. The final straw came when a distraught Kaon arrived with the news that the Autobots had kidnapped the D.J.D.'s [[Dominus Ambus|pet sparkeater]]; determined to cut out of both the hearts of himself and his men the compassion that he saw as Megatron's downfall, Tarn slew Kaon on the spot, tearing his head from his shoulders. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 3: Your Fierce Tears|Your Fierce Tears}}

At sundown, Tarn led the Decepticons in their attack, {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 4: At Close of Day|At Close of Day}} playing "The Empyrean Suite" across the battlefield as battle commenced. He initially hung back with Deathsaurus, but joined the fight in earnest after a temporary power-up acquired by the Autobots wore off, ripping [[Ravage (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Ravage]] clean in half. Unfortunately, that turned out to be just the thing to bring Megatron out onto the battlefield, cutting swathes through the Decepticon troops. Tarn surreptitiously ordered the D.J.D. to retreat, whilst demanding Deathsaurus's troops enact a suicidal assault on Megatron. When the ex-Decepticon's new fusion cannon was destroyed, he unexpectedly sunk to his knees in panicked defeat, and Tarn and Overlord moved to strike the final blow together. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 5: Rage, Rage|Rage, Rage}}

[[File:mtmte55 goodbye tarn.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.4|You will die alone. Unmourned. And unloved.]]
Their shots, however, were reflected by the sudden activation of a forcefield by Megatron. Whilst Overlord and Deathsaurus abandoned the planet, unwilling to waste their time and troops respectively on Megatron, Tarn and the other remaining members of the D.J.D. assaulted the forcefield until they could finally force their way in. Things went very badly wrong after that, as soon as the D.J.D. were all inside Megatron rose to his feet and chided Tarn, ripping the D.J.D. leader's fusion cannon off in disgust. With dawning horror the D.J.D. realised everything was all according to Megatron's plan–after years of study, he had finally managed to interlink his systems with a black hole to harvest [[antimatter]], and he had no intention of letting any of them leave alive. With his former enforcers now trapped, Megatron tore through them with tendrils of antimatter, speaking their true names at the moments of their deaths. Tarn was saved for last, his mask ripped off as Megatron called him by his previous name: "Glitch". Tarn first begged for Megatron to be "reasonable", then tried fake bravado, just as many of his own victims had done... and with as little success.

Completing his denouncement of his former enforcer, Megatron informed Damus that "Everything you did was for nothing" and obliterated him with antimatter. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 6: Do Not Go Gentle|Do Not Go Gentle}}

Much later, when Nickel was on the verge of being killed by [[Scorponok (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Scorponok]], she used Tarn's voicemail message to paralyze the ex-Decepticon, allowing her and the [[Scavenger (group)|Scavengers]] to escape. {{storylink|Kill All 'Cons}}
{{-}}

====The Functionist Universe====
[[File:This Machine Kills Fascists-Functionist Glitch.jpg|thumb|"There must always be a Megatron."]]
Glitch was amongst a group of [[Anti-Vocationist League]] members who attended a secret meeting beneath [[Nova Point]]. There, he listened to the universally-displaced Megatron speak about how to fight the [[Functionist Council]] for the goal of "peace through empathy". {{storylink|Dissolution Part 6: This Machine Kills Fascists|This Machine Kills Fascists}}

===''Kre-O'' online manga===
[[File:KreO-webcomic-9-Tarn.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.6]]
Tarn was part of [[Bludgeon (Kre-O)|Bludgeon]]'s forces when they uncovered the [[Red Bucket]]. {{storylink|Treasure Competition! Defeat with Block Power!}}

{{-}}

===''TransTech''===
An [[Lowtech|Offworlder]] in [[Axiom Nexus]], Tarn was a judge of ''[[Cybertron's Got Talent]]'' in the wake of [[Ego (TransTech)|Ego]]'s death. Tarn enjoyed calling out sub-par transformations as part of his judging. {{storylink|Andromeda - Axiom Nexus News Reporter|Andromeda - Axiom Nexus News, 2015/05/14}}

===An Arcee Sort of Day===
After the Great War ended, Damus joined a [[Unicron/Generation 1|Unicron]] cult, warning a passing [[Arcee (G1)|Arcee]] that the world was ending. {{storylink|An Arcee Sort of Day}}

===2019 IDW continuity===
Damus was enjoying a drug den when [[Nightbeat (G1)|Nightbeat]] kicked down the door and requested both calm and [[Sixshot (G1)|Sixshot]]'s squad from the [[War of the Threefold Spark]]. {{storylink|The Change In Your Nature Part One}}
{{-}}

==Games==
===''Transformers Legends''===
Tarn and the rest of the DJD pursued Black Shadow for taking bribes from the Autobots. The DJD found their target hiding on planet Clemency, and dispatched them with extreme prejudice as Tarn set course for their next assignment. {{storylink|Rules of Disengagement (Legends)|Rules of Disengagement}}
{{-}}

==Merchandise==
===Flame Toys===
[[File:FlameToysTarn.jpg|upright=1.66|thumb|"You'll suffer till the end of time, enduring tortures, most of which rhyme, trapped forever here in Robot Hell!"]]
*'''Tarn''' (August [[2018]])
**''Accessories'': mask, 2 fusion cannons, 2 back cannons, clean mask (exclusive), 2 vocal effector cannons (exclusive)

:Produced by [[Flame Toys]] as part of their ''Kuro Kara Kuri'' line, Tarn is a detailed non-transforming action figure featuring [[die-cast]] parts and LEDs in his head, chest, and legs. He comes with two fusion cannons that can be mounted on his arm or combined into one giant handheld weapon, two guns that attach to his back and a removable mask. If purchased via D4toys.com, SEN-TI-DEN Hong Kong, or events attended by Flame Toys, he also includes an alternate mask without scars and two speakers that can replace the back guns.

*'''Tarn (Power Burst ver.)''' ([[July 26]], [[2019]])
:Debuted by Flame Toys at ACGHK 2019, "Tarn (Power Burst ver.)" is a chrome-plated redeco of the above figure, limited to 300 pieces: 200 at ACGHK 2019 and 100 at D4toys.com.
{{-}}

==Notes==
[[File:Tarn BlackShadow RulesofDisengagement.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|left|"What are you gonna do, talk me to death?" "Yup"]]
[[File: Tfhero_tarn_lookalike.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|I don't really see it, to be honest.]]
*[[Alex Milne]] said in a Facebook interview that his ideal voice for Tarn is [[Keith David]].<ref>[https://www.facebook.com/notes/transformers/transformers-more-than-meets-the-eye-vol-2-alex-milne-interview/395646703838863 Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye vol. 2 Alex Milne interview]</ref>
*Like all non-toy robot [[Kreon]]s in the ''Kre-O'' manga, Kreon Tarn is made from existing ''Kre-O'' parts, but extensively "painted". He uses the [[Ratchet (Kre-O)|Ratchet]] helmet, the [[Megatron (Kre-O)|Megatron]] arm-cannon, and some kind of setup to wear the Bludgeon treads on his back.
*For some time, the popular speculation among the readership of ''More than Meets the Eye'' was that Tarn had originally been [[Roller (IDW)|Roller]]. [[Elegant Chaos Part 1: All Our Parlous Yesterdays#Other trivia|''More than Meets the Eye'' #36]] dropped a number of clues to further this theory before the actual revelation in [[The Dying of the Light Part 6: Do Not Go Gentle|issue #55]], which revealed these to be nothing more than red herrings. James Roberts cheekily had Roller reveal himself as still alive and intact on the page right after Velocity asked who Tarn really was and just before the actual unmasking.
*Damus's city of origin was never revealed in fiction, but was stated by [[James Roberts]] to be... Tarn.<ref>James Roberts Q&A at TFNation 2017</ref>
*Tarn's design bears a fairly strong resemblance to a piece of concept artwork for ''Transformers: Hero'', or what would eventually be developed into ''[[Transformers Animated (franchise)|Transformers Animated]]''. Alex Milne says he's never seen it before,<ref>[https://twitter.com/markerguru/status/1204197465248931840 Twitter conversation with Alex Milne on 9 December, 2019]</ref> which shouldn't come as much of a surprise; in a franchise that's this big, and that's been around this long, some ideas are good enough to be had twice.
*Not only does he wear the Decepticon insignia on his face, his entire torso appears designed to evoke it too.
*Damus's name is derived from {{w|Nostradamus}}, a historical figure tied to prophecy.<ref>[https://twitter.com/jroberts332/status/1058379500898140161 Twitter conversation with James Roberts on 2 November, 2018]</ref>
*The [[Perfect Decepticon]]s from ''[[Transformers: Cyberverse (cartoon)|Transformers: Cyberverse]]'' are designed to resemble Tarn.
*Tarn was also mentioned as a phase sixer by James Roberts on Twitter.

===Foreign names===
*''Japanese:'' '''Tarn''' (ターン ''Tān'')

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:Anti-Vocationist League]]
[[Category:Decepticon leaders]]
[[Category:IDW (2005) Decepticons]]
[[Category:IDW (2019) Transformers]]
[[Category:Kre-O Decepticons]]
[[Category:Kreons]]
[[Category:Point One Percenters]]
[[Category:TransTech Decepticons]]

Tarn (G1)

2021-07-21T14:21:41Z

Mi5FiRE: /* Notes */

{{factions|decepticon}}
{{disambigm|Tarn (polity)|Glitch (disambiguation)}}
:''Tarn is a [[Decepticon]] from the [[2005 IDW continuity|2005 IDW portion]] of the [[Generation 1 continuity family|Generation 1]] [[continuity family]].''

[[File:MTMTE Tarn Alex Milne.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|He kills you with culture... and also ''violence''.]]
'''Tarn''' is an eloquent [[Decepticon]]. He enjoys nothing more than playing beautiful [[The Empyrean Suite|music]] as he waxes poetic quoting ''[[Towards Peace]]'' and other philosophical works by [[Megatron (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Megatron]]. He tends to indulge these pleasures at the same time he's using his specially modulated vocal processor to cause the [[Decepticon Justice Division]]'s latest transgressor's spark to self-destruct. The leader of the D.J.D., Tarn epitomizes the mentality of the team. He is beyond zealous in his devotion to Megatron's cause, going so far as to emboss the Decepticon [[insignia]] onto his own faceplate. No traitor, no coward is capable of escaping his team.

Despite appearances, Tarn is a mess of contradictions. Viewing himself as the central pillar of the D.J.D., he can be as brutally violent as any other Decepticon, but views himself as a bureaucrat and his team as his administration. He believes his actions are entirely justified, yet sometimes his thoughts are a constant stream of self-denigration. He works hard to run a tight but fair ship, and is not above taking in an open-minded, needy stray. On the other hand, for all his thoughts of sophistication and control, Tarn can go from affable to life-threatening at the least provocation. His addictive tendencies have led to him burning out his original [[transformation cog]] years ago, and his reliance on the power-enhancing [[Nucleon (substance)|Nuke]] can lead to his losing himself to the lust for violence. And have no doubt that while he may try and convince himself otherwise, Tarn is a truly sociopathic murderer. Ultimately whether Tarn is a monster or not is irrelevant. His utter devotion to the Decepticon cause means he will ensure the fear of Megatron is put into any that would consider abandoning their noble goals.

{{quote|If you want to break someone—mentally, physically, emotionally—wait until they're happy. Let them live and love and thrive. Once they recognize the value of a life well lived... THAT'S when you move in for the kill. Because you can't take anything from someone who has nothing to lose.|Tarn|"[[The Dying of the Light Part 2: The Sun in Flight|The Sun in Flight]]" teaser}}

==Fiction==
===2005 IDW continuity===
{{First|[[How Ratchet Got His Hands Back|''More than Meets the Eye'' #5]] (shadowy image); [[Rules of Disengagement (issue)|#7]] (full appearance, as Tarn); [[Shadowplay, Part 2: Patternism|#10]] (as Glitch)}}

[[File:Ratchet glitch shadowplay.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|Glitch is [[Wolverine (Marvel)|the one with the claws]].]]
'''Damus''' was [[reproduction|forged]], born an exceptionally powerful [[Point One Percenter]] {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} and an [[Outlier (group)|outlier]] who possessed the ability to render non-sentient machinery inoperative by touching it, but with one drawback: the power hurt him every time he used it. Before the [[Great War (G1)|war]], Damus attended the [[Jhiaxian Academy of Advanced Technology]] where they possibly attempted to analyze his brain-wave patterns and kept his outlier status hidden from the [[Senate]] and [[Functionist Council]].

At some point, he crossed the [[Senate]] and was subjected to [[empurata]]: his hands and head replaced to mark him out as someone to shun. After that, to tie in with his power, he started to call himself '''Glitch'''. {{storylink|Shadowplay, Part 2: Patternism|Patternism}}

When [[Optimus Prime (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Orion Pax]] devised a plan to steal a bomb disguised as the [[Matrix of Leadership|Matrix]] from [[Nominus Prime]]'s corpse his [[Shockwave (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Senator friend]] recruited Damus, [[Windcharger (G1)|Windcharger]], and [[Skids (G1)|Skids]] from the Academy to participate in the heist. Damus's part in the plan was to deactivate the deflector beams above the [[Primal Basilica]] and despite a slight hitch when Damus accidentally jammed Skids's grappling hook by touching his arm, the plan succeeded. {{storylink|Shadowplay (Conclusion): An Intimate Beheading|An Intimate Beheading}}

Following Shockwave's capture and brainwashing by the [[Senate]], the Outliers stuck with Orion Pax and aided him in defending a [[hot spot (phenomenon)|hot spot]] in [[Alyon]] from [[Sentinel Prime (G1)|Sentinel Prime]]'s forces. By this time Damus had gotten replacement hands and learned to use his power from a distance, utilizing it to break down [[Elite Guard]] vehicles from afar. With help from a group of time travelers from the ''[[Lost Light]]'' of the future, the group took down a weapons platform sent to irradiate the hot spot's [[spark]]s, then had their memories of the travelers wiped by [[Chromedome (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Chromedome]].

[[File:PermanentRevolution-Backwards.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.2|[[Keith David|"And what would you have your Justice Division do?"]]]]

During the whole affair, Orion Pax recommended reading Megatron's treatises around Glitch: "powerful stuff," he said. Considering Megatron's stated reasons for converting him to the Decepticon cause, we can only assume that he listened a little too well. {{storylink|Elegant Chaos Part 1: All Our Parlous Yesterdays|All Our Parlous Yesterdays}}

Exactly how and when Damus joined the Decepticons is unknown, but Megatron would later claim he had deliberately "corrupted" Tarn to hurt ''someone'' and prove a point. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 3: Your Fierce Tears|Your Fierce Tears}} Damus joined early enough to be at the beginning of Megatron's march across Cybertron. Rebuilt under the supervision of [[Lobe]], {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} Damus's power and endurance was considered by [[Prowl (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Prowl]] to put him on the same level as a [[Phase Sixer]]. {{storylink|Remembrance Day}} His mask was taken as a sign of Decepticon supremacy but, at least so he told himself, it was really so nobody would notice when he closed his eyes around Decepticon brutality. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} In one particular battle during the war, Damus tussled with [[Thunder Clash|Thunderclash]]. {{storylink|Shining Armor issue 3|Shining Armor #3}}

[[File:SpeakMemory2-results.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|"How's it hanging? ... Oh... oh. That dude is ''really'' hanging there. My bad." "Stop it, you uncultured mech. You came here to report, not make puns."]]

Damus became commandant of [[Grindcore (prison)|Grindcore prison]], where he became associated with "[[The Empyrean Suite]]", playing it at maximum volume to drown out the screams of the prisoners he executed via smelting. {{storylink|Speak, Memory: Part 1}} In this, he was trying to deliberately bastardize a song composed by [[Eucryphia]] to celebrate [[Prima]] and the [[Citadel of Light]]. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} One of his prisoners, soon after the prison's smelting chamber had malfunctioned, was his old comrade Skids. Damus bargained with Skids to fix it, telling him it was a "teleport chamber" and fifty prisoners would be released from Grindcore for this, and was able to con Skids into thinking that he could be trusted. Skids was relaxed enough around Damus to take praise genuinely and push for more freed prisoners later.

In the end, Damus sent all fifty prisoners to the "teleporation chamber" and cruelly forced Skids to watch as it was used to execute a group of prisoners, including Skids's cellmate [[Quark]], melting them down into raw materials for use in the creation of [[M.T.O.]]s. Damus deliberately used the event to cripple Skids' religious faith. {{storylink|Speak, Memory: Part 1}} {{storylink|Speak, Memory! (Part 2)}}

After Damus became leader of the D.J.D. as "Tarn" (and would never again use his old name), his powers developed to the point where he could shut down sentient machines using his voice alone. Under him, the group became ''very'' focused on paperwork: the [[Decepticon Empire]] required good administration, in his view. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} When [[Grimlock (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Grimlock]], who had briefly defected to the Decepticons, {{storylink|Animals}} {{storylink|Hasbro Heroes Sourcebook issue 2|Grimlock profile}} returned to the Autobot ranks, Megatron was so incensed by the betrayal that he ordered the DJD to bump the Dynobot leader up to the top of the list. In a subsequent battle against Grimlock, Tarn had his face badly mangled by his opponent. {{storylink|The Ties That Bind (issue)|The Ties That Bind}}

Some two hundred years ago, Tarn was present at Megatron's current command center when [[Starscream (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Starscream]] returned from a botched mission on [[Xetaxxis]]. {{storylink|Shining Armor issue 5|Shining Armor #5}}

[[File:LL14-tarn-unmasked.jpg|thumb|There's an ironic joke about [[empurata]] in here if someone cares to find it.]]

Some time later, the DJD established a base on the world of [[Messatine]] in order to obtain the "Nuke" superfuel there. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} Tarn coerced [[Pharma (G1)|Pharma]], head surgeon of the planet's Autobot medical facility [[Delphi]], into helping feed his addiction by supplying him with an ever-increasing number of transformation cogs from deceased patients, in exchange for the hospital being unmolested by his team. Pharma would eventually cut off Tarn's supply by orchestrating the facility's shutdown. {{storylink|How Ratchet Got His Hands Back}}

In 2009, following the [[Surge (event)|Surge]], Tarn led the D.J.D. to [[Garrus-9]] to find and eliminate his old teacher Shockwave, who was now the most wanted Decepticon on [[The List|the D.J.D's master hit list]]. After intercepting his vessel, however, they discovered that Shockwave had prepared for this eventuality by staffing his ship with crewmembers who were also on the list, in the hopes of bartering their lives for his. Tarn opted to ignore the offer, using his voice to slowly talk the old Senator to death, but Shockwave was able to blast the radio in time. When Shockwave's backup arrived in the form of [[Bludgeon (G1)|Bludgeon]] and the [[Pretender Monster|Monstructor Six]], the DJD retreated. {{storylink|The Ties That Bind (issue)|The Ties That Bind}}

[[File:Tarn transforms MTMTE08.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.2|He's got friends on the other side.]]

Though the war formally ended in 2012, Tarn and his group refused to give up the cause—indeed, they would only deign to stand down when Megatron personally commanded it—and continued to hunt down those Decepticons that had betrayed the cause and hadn't yet returned to Cybertron. {{storylink|Scavengers (Part 2): Who's Afraid of the DJD?|Who's Afraid of the DJD?}} Informed by Decepticon spy [[Brainstorm (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Brainstorm]] that high-priority target [[Overlord (Masterforce)|Overlord]] was aboard the starship ''[[Lost Light]]'', Tarn and the D.J.D. continued to work through their list of offenders as they waited for Brainstorm to drop the ship's shielding so they could pick up Overlord's signal. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} One such unfortunate was [[Black Shadow (Victory)|Black Shadow]], whom Tarn explosively finished off with his deadly voice, after which the team set course of the planet [[Clemency]] to hunt down Decepticon deserter [[Fulcrum]]. {{storylink|Rules of Disengagement (issue)|Rules of Disengagement}} Arriving on Clemency, the team discovered a mysterious [[stasis pod|stasis tube]] awaiting them; when Tarn investigated, he found it contained a deranged, [[circuit speeder]]-enhanced [[Grimlock (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Grimlock]], unleashed by Fulcrum and his new allies, the [[Scavenger (group)|Scavengers]]. Tarn was soon able to subdue the brain-damaged [[Dinobot (G1)|Dinobot]], but was then crushed beneath the foot of a [[Cybernought]] battle-mech that [[Crankcase (G1)|Crankcase]] had activated. Tarn recovered in time to hear Fulcrum deliver a speech to all assembled about Decepticon ideals before apparently committing suicide. At that point, [[Kaon (DJD)|Kaon]] detected Overlord's long-awaited signal, and Tarn ordered the D.J.D. to head out—but not before warning the surviving Scavengers that their names had now made it onto [[The List]]. {{storylink|Scavengers (Part 2): Who's Afraid of the DJD?|Who's Afraid of the DJD?}}

Tracking Overlord's signal, the D.J.D. found the ''Lost Light''—which was, unbeknownst to Tarn and his team, actually one of ''two'' versions of the ship created by a malfunction of its [[quantum generator]]s—near the planet [[Ofsted XVII]]. Despite having promised Brainstorm they would not harm any of the crew, the discovery that the traitor [[Drift (G1)|Deadlock]] was aboard the ship them set the D.J.D. off, and after dealing with him, they set about murdering the rest of the ship. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} Tarn personally destroyed [[Ultra Magnus (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Ultra Magnus]], [[Swerve (G1)|Swerve]], and [[Cyclonus (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Cyclonus]], and forced a large portion of the crew to transform before executing them, leaving their transformation cogs warm for location and harvesting. Eventually, Tarn removed a still-restrained and suicidal Overlord's head with a chainsaw, and the D.J.D. left the ship. {{storylink|slaughterhouse}} {{storylink|slaughterhouse Part 2: The Road Not Taken|The Road Not Taken}}

[[File:ThePermanentRevolution-goingtowar.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|'''Cause when push'' ''Comes to shove'' ''I will send a fully armed battalion'' ''To remind you of my love'' <s>for the cause</s>]]

Sometime during the months that followed, Kaon spontaneously began [[universal killswitch|writhing in agony]] right in front of Tarn, who tried to get his teammate to tell him what he could do to help, before the mysterious effect subsided. {{storylink|Remain in Light 4 of 5: Arm the Lonely|Arm the Lonely}} Also during this time, the D.J.D. welcomed a new member—[[Nickel]], last survivor of a Cybertronian colony wiped out by the [[Black Block Consortia]]. At Nickel's insistence, they returned to Ofsted XVII to salvage the quantum engines from the derelict ''Lost Light''. They wound up arriving in the middle of a battle between the Consortia and the [[Galactic Council]], who teamed up against the Cybertronians. Under attack by both sides and faced with additional enemy reinforcements, Tarn was forced to retreat, leaving Vos and Kaon behind. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} Tarn eventually gifted Nickel a phone onto which he recorded a message she could use to paralyze people who were threatening her. {{storylink|Kill All 'Cons}}

The diminished D.J.D. returned to their duties, though Tarn began to weary of the work. After apprehending the [[Sparkeater (creature)|Sparkeater]]-worshipping [[Blip]], Tarn was about to end his life using his voice, until Blip used his last words to demand that Tarn remove his mask. Affronted, Tarn allowed [[Helex (DJD)|Helex]] and [[Tesarus (DJD)|Tesarus]] to finish Blip instead, averting his gaze beneath his mask. Tarn subsequently ordered performance reviews for the team, and nearly came to blows with Tesarus when he implied that abandoning Vos and Kaon was not the Decepticon thing to do. Calming himself, Tarn explained that they were returning to Ofsted XVII again in order to recover their bodies, but was interrupted by Helex's announcement that Vos and Kaon had returned to the ship safe, sound, and with something unbelievable: a postwar edition of ''[[Towards Peace]]'' that revealed Megatron himself had defected from the Decepticons.

His world shattered by this discovery, Tarn had the D.J.D. return to Messatine, where he attempted to fatally overdose on Nuke. Finding even the sensation of dying disappointing, Tarn opened his eyes to see a distraught Nickel pressed against the glass of his fueling capsule. The sight of her triggered a revelation for Tarn: she was a 'bot who had experienced first-hand the threat the predominantly-organic universe posed to Cybertronians, and who had fully embraced the Decepticon cause despite living her life outside of the war. The cause, Tarn now realized, was bigger than any one 'bot—bigger than Megatron. Galvanized, Tarn set up a meeting with the rogue Decepticon warlord [[Deathsaurus (Victory)|Deathsaurus]] aboard his stolen [[Warworld]]. Knowing full well he was on the D.J.D.'s list, Deathsaurus pre-emptively attacked Tarn upon his arrival, even deactivating his audio receptors to protect himself from Tarn's voice, but Tarn was able to communicate with him and his troops through [[inter-Decepticon radio]] and explained the reason for his presence: he wished them to ally with him, in return for their being taken off The List. Deathsaurus agreed on the condition that Tarn kill the rest of the D.J.D., which Tarn refused to do—which was the response Deathsaurus had been hoping for. With their alliance cemented, Tarn declared their new objective: kill the traitorous Megatron and all of his allies! {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}}

[[File:TarnAltMode.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|left|I'm about to drop the hammer and dispense some indiscriminate justice!]]

The allied forces of Tarn and Deathsaurus proceeded to attack the [[Necroworld|Necrobot's world]], killing [[Mortilus|its sole inhabitant]] and using his machinery to broadcast a message that lured Megatron and all those aboard the ''Lost Light'' sympathetic to him down to the planet. When they arrived, the villains shot them down and cornered them in the Necrobot's fortress. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light: (1) How Bright Their Frail Deeds|How Bright Their Frail Deeds}} As an act of indirect torture, Tarn had their forces pull back, warning Megatron and his comrades that they would return at sunset, leaving them to stew in their own fear. Returning to the ''[[Peaceful Tyranny]]'', Tarn spent the time showing off his collection of Megatron's writings to Deathsaurus, and discussing tactics with his men; he did not take Tesarus's concerns about the Necrobot's fortress's storm shield seriously, but the discussion was interrupted by a call on Tarn's personal communicator from Megatron himself. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 2: The Sun in Flight|The Sun in Flight}}

[[File:YourFierceTears-byebyekaon.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|Give me your...you know the drill.]]

Tarn agreed to a meeting with Megatron alone, whereupon his former leader agreed to surrender in exchange for the rest of the Autobots being allowed to go free. Saddened and disgusted to truly see with his own eyes how far his idol had fallen, Tarn beat him to within an inch of his life, and was just about to deliver the killing shot when [[Overlord (Masterforce)|Overlord]] suddenly appeared, insisting that it was his right to end Megatron's life. Both refused to stand down, resulting in a bickering battle between the two that gave Megatron the chance to escape. Realizing their folly, Tarn and Overlord agreed to a truce, though Overlord continued to needle Tarn all the way back to the ''Peaceful Tyranny''. The final straw came when a distraught Kaon arrived with the news that the Autobots had kidnapped the D.J.D.'s [[Dominus Ambus|pet sparkeater]]; determined to cut out of both the hearts of himself and his men the compassion that he saw as Megatron's downfall, Tarn slew Kaon on the spot, tearing his head from his shoulders. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 3: Your Fierce Tears|Your Fierce Tears}}

At sundown, Tarn led the Decepticons in their attack, {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 4: At Close of Day|At Close of Day}} playing "The Empyrean Suite" across the battlefield as battle commenced. He initially hung back with Deathsaurus, but joined the fight in earnest after a temporary power-up acquired by the Autobots wore off, ripping [[Ravage (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Ravage]] clean in half. Unfortunately, that turned out to be just the thing to bring Megatron out onto the battlefield, cutting swathes through the Decepticon troops. Tarn surreptitiously ordered the D.J.D. to retreat, whilst demanding Deathsaurus's troops enact a suicidal assault on Megatron. When the ex-Decepticon's new fusion cannon was destroyed, he unexpectedly sunk to his knees in panicked defeat, and Tarn and Overlord moved to strike the final blow together. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 5: Rage, Rage|Rage, Rage}}

[[File:mtmte55 goodbye tarn.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.4|You will die alone. Unmourned. And unloved.]]
Their shots, however, were reflected by the sudden activation of a forcefield by Megatron. Whilst Overlord and Deathsaurus abandoned the planet, unwilling to waste their time and troops respectively on Megatron, Tarn and the other remaining members of the D.J.D. assaulted the forcefield until they could finally force their way in. Things went very badly wrong after that, as soon as the D.J.D. were all inside Megatron rose to his feet and chided Tarn, ripping the D.J.D. leader's fusion cannon off in disgust. With dawning horror the D.J.D. realised everything was all according to Megatron's plan–after years of study, he had finally managed to interlink his systems with a black hole to harvest [[antimatter]], and he had no intention of letting any of them leave alive. With his former enforcers now trapped, Megatron tore through them with tendrils of antimatter, speaking their true names at the moments of their deaths. Tarn was saved for last, his mask ripped off as Megatron called him by his previous name: "Glitch". Tarn first begged for Megatron to be "reasonable", then tried fake bravado, just as many of his own victims had done... and with as little success.

Completing his denouncement of his former enforcer, Megatron informed Damus that "Everything you did was for nothing" and obliterated him with antimatter. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 6: Do Not Go Gentle|Do Not Go Gentle}}

Much later, when Nickel was on the verge of being killed by [[Scorponok (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Scorponok]], she used Tarn's voicemail message to paralyze the ex-Decepticon, allowing her and the [[Scavenger (group)|Scavengers]] to escape. {{storylink|Kill All 'Cons}}
{{-}}

====The Functionist Universe====
[[File:This Machine Kills Fascists-Functionist Glitch.jpg|thumb|"There must always be a Megatron."]]
Glitch was amongst a group of [[Anti-Vocationist League]] members who attended a secret meeting beneath [[Nova Point]]. There, he listened to the universally-displaced Megatron speak about how to fight the [[Functionist Council]] for the goal of "peace through empathy". {{storylink|Dissolution Part 6: This Machine Kills Fascists|This Machine Kills Fascists}}

===''Kre-O'' online manga===
[[File:KreO-webcomic-9-Tarn.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.6]]
Tarn was part of [[Bludgeon (Kre-O)|Bludgeon]]'s forces when they uncovered the [[Red Bucket]]. {{storylink|Treasure Competition! Defeat with Block Power!}}

{{-}}

===''TransTech''===
An [[Lowtech|Offworlder]] in [[Axiom Nexus]], Tarn was a judge of ''[[Cybertron's Got Talent]]'' in the wake of [[Ego (TransTech)|Ego]]'s death. Tarn enjoyed calling out sub-par transformations as part of his judging. {{storylink|Andromeda - Axiom Nexus News Reporter|Andromeda - Axiom Nexus News, 2015/05/14}}

===An Arcee Sort of Day===
After the Great War ended, Damus joined a [[Unicron/Generation 1|Unicron]] cult, warning a passing [[Arcee (G1)|Arcee]] that the world was ending. {{storylink|An Arcee Sort of Day}}

===2019 IDW continuity===
Damus was enjoying a drug den when [[Nightbeat (G1)|Nightbeat]] kicked down the door and requested both calm and [[Sixshot (G1)|Sixshot]]'s squad from the [[War of the Threefold Spark]]. {{storylink|The Change In Your Nature Part One}}
{{-}}

==Games==
===''Transformers Legends''===
Tarn and the rest of the DJD pursued Black Shadow for taking bribes from the Autobots. The DJD found their target hiding on planet Clemency, and dispatched them with extreme prejudice as Tarn set course for their next assignment. {{storylink|Rules of Disengagement (Legends)|Rules of Disengagement}}
{{-}}

==Merchandise==
===Flame Toys===
[[File:FlameToysTarn.jpg|upright=1.66|thumb|"You'll suffer till the end of time, enduring tortures, most of which rhyme, trapped forever here in Robot Hell!"]]
*'''Tarn''' (August [[2018]])
**''Accessories'': mask, 2 fusion cannons, 2 back cannons, clean mask (exclusive), 2 vocal effector cannons (exclusive)

:Produced by [[Flame Toys]] as part of their ''Kuro Kara Kuri'' line, Tarn is a detailed non-transforming action figure featuring [[die-cast]] parts and LEDs in his head, chest, and legs. He comes with two fusion cannons that can be mounted on his arm or combined into one giant handheld weapon, two guns that attach to his back and a removable mask. If purchased via D4toys.com, SEN-TI-DEN Hong Kong, or events attended by Flame Toys, he also includes an alternate mask without scars and two speakers that can replace the back guns.

*'''Tarn (Power Burst ver.)''' ([[July 26]], [[2019]])
:Debuted by Flame Toys at ACGHK 2019, "Tarn (Power Burst ver.)" is a chrome-plated redeco of the above figure, limited to 300 pieces: 200 at ACGHK 2019 and 100 at D4toys.com.
{{-}}

==Notes==
[[File:Tarn BlackShadow RulesofDisengagement.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|left|"What are you gonna do, talk me to death?" "Yup"]]
[[File: Tfhero_tarn_lookalike.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|I don't really see it, to be honest.]]
*[[Alex Milne]] said in a Facebook interview that his ideal voice for Tarn is [[Keith David]].<ref>[https://www.facebook.com/notes/transformers/transformers-more-than-meets-the-eye-vol-2-alex-milne-interview/395646703838863 Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye vol. 2 Alex Milne interview]</ref>
*Like all non-toy robot [[Kreon]]s in the ''Kre-O'' manga, Kreon Tarn is made from existing ''Kre-O'' parts, but extensively "painted". He uses the [[Ratchet (Kre-O)|Ratchet]] helmet, the [[Megatron (Kre-O)|Megatron]] arm-cannon, and some kind of setup to wear the Bludgeon treads on his back.
*For some time, the popular speculation among the readership of ''More than Meets the Eye'' was that Tarn had originally been [[Roller (IDW)|Roller]]. [[Elegant Chaos Part 1: All Our Parlous Yesterdays#Other trivia|''More than Meets the Eye'' #36]] dropped a number of clues to further this theory before the actual revelation in [[The Dying of the Light Part 6: Do Not Go Gentle|issue #55]], which revealed these to be nothing more than red herrings. James Roberts cheekily had Roller reveal himself as still alive and intact on the page right after Velocity asked who Tarn really was and just before the actual unmasking.
*Damus's city of origin was never revealed in fiction, but was stated by [[James Roberts]] to be... Tarn.<ref>James Roberts Q&A at TFNation 2017</ref>
*Tarn's design bears a fairly strong resemblance to a piece of concept artwork for ''Transformers: Hero'', or what would eventually be developed into ''[[Transformers Animated (franchise)|Transformers Animated]]''. Alex Milne says he's never seen it before,<ref>[https://twitter.com/markerguru/status/1204197465248931840 Twitter conversation with Alex Milne on 9 December, 2019]</ref> which shouldn't come as much of a surprise; in a franchise that's this big, and that's been around this long, some ideas are good enough to be had twice.
*Not only does he wear the Decepticon insignia on his face, his entire torso appears designed to evoke it too.
*Damus's name is derived from {{w|Nostradamus}}, a historical figure tied to prophecy.<ref>[https://twitter.com/jroberts332/status/1058379500898140161 Twitter conversation with James Roberts on 2 November, 2018]</ref>
*The [[Perfect Decepticon]]s from ''[[Transformers: Cyberverse (cartoon)|Transformers: Cyberverse]]'' are designed to resemble Tarn.
*Tarn was mentioned as a phase sixer by James Roberts on Twitter, however, it is unsure if he means ununtrinium enhanced warrior or just the title.

===Foreign names===
*''Japanese:'' '''Tarn''' (ターン ''Tān'')

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:Anti-Vocationist League]]
[[Category:Decepticon leaders]]
[[Category:IDW (2005) Decepticons]]
[[Category:IDW (2019) Transformers]]
[[Category:Kre-O Decepticons]]
[[Category:Kreons]]
[[Category:Point One Percenters]]
[[Category:TransTech Decepticons]]

Tarn (G1)

2021-07-21T14:17:46Z

Mi5FiRE:

{{factions|decepticon}}
{{disambigm|Tarn (polity)|Glitch (disambiguation)}}
:''Tarn is a [[Decepticon]] from the [[2005 IDW continuity|2005 IDW portion]] of the [[Generation 1 continuity family|Generation 1]] [[continuity family]].''

[[File:MTMTE Tarn Alex Milne.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|He kills you with culture... and also ''violence''.]]
'''Tarn''' is an eloquent [[Decepticon]]. He enjoys nothing more than playing beautiful [[The Empyrean Suite|music]] as he waxes poetic quoting ''[[Towards Peace]]'' and other philosophical works by [[Megatron (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Megatron]]. He tends to indulge these pleasures at the same time he's using his specially modulated vocal processor to cause the [[Decepticon Justice Division]]'s latest transgressor's spark to self-destruct. The leader of the D.J.D., Tarn epitomizes the mentality of the team. He is beyond zealous in his devotion to Megatron's cause, going so far as to emboss the Decepticon [[insignia]] onto his own faceplate. No traitor, no coward is capable of escaping his team.

Despite appearances, Tarn is a mess of contradictions. Viewing himself as the central pillar of the D.J.D., he can be as brutally violent as any other Decepticon, but views himself as a bureaucrat and his team as his administration. He believes his actions are entirely justified, yet sometimes his thoughts are a constant stream of self-denigration. He works hard to run a tight but fair ship, and is not above taking in an open-minded, needy stray. On the other hand, for all his thoughts of sophistication and control, Tarn can go from affable to life-threatening at the least provocation. His addictive tendencies have led to him burning out his original [[transformation cog]] years ago, and his reliance on the power-enhancing [[Nucleon (substance)|Nuke]] can lead to his losing himself to the lust for violence. And have no doubt that while he may try and convince himself otherwise, Tarn is a truly sociopathic murderer. Ultimately whether Tarn is a monster or not is irrelevant. His utter devotion to the Decepticon cause means he will ensure the fear of Megatron is put into any that would consider abandoning their noble goals.

{{quote|If you want to break someone—mentally, physically, emotionally—wait until they're happy. Let them live and love and thrive. Once they recognize the value of a life well lived... THAT'S when you move in for the kill. Because you can't take anything from someone who has nothing to lose.|Tarn|"[[The Dying of the Light Part 2: The Sun in Flight|The Sun in Flight]]" teaser}}

==Fiction==
===2005 IDW continuity===
{{First|[[How Ratchet Got His Hands Back|''More than Meets the Eye'' #5]] (shadowy image); [[Rules of Disengagement (issue)|#7]] (full appearance, as Tarn); [[Shadowplay, Part 2: Patternism|#10]] (as Glitch)}}

[[File:Ratchet glitch shadowplay.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|Glitch is [[Wolverine (Marvel)|the one with the claws]].]]
'''Damus''' was [[reproduction|forged]], born an exceptionally powerful [[Point One Percenter]] {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} and an [[Outlier (group)|outlier]] who possessed the ability to render non-sentient machinery inoperative by touching it, but with one drawback: the power hurt him every time he used it. Before the [[Great War (G1)|war]], Damus attended the [[Jhiaxian Academy of Advanced Technology]] where they possibly attempted to analyze his brain-wave patterns and kept his outlier status hidden from the [[Senate]] and [[Functionist Council]].

At some point, he crossed the [[Senate]] and was subjected to [[empurata]]: his hands and head replaced to mark him out as someone to shun. After that, to tie in with his power, he started to call himself '''Glitch'''. {{storylink|Shadowplay, Part 2: Patternism|Patternism}}

When [[Optimus Prime (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Orion Pax]] devised a plan to steal a bomb disguised as the [[Matrix of Leadership|Matrix]] from [[Nominus Prime]]'s corpse his [[Shockwave (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Senator friend]] recruited Damus, [[Windcharger (G1)|Windcharger]], and [[Skids (G1)|Skids]] from the Academy to participate in the heist. Damus's part in the plan was to deactivate the deflector beams above the [[Primal Basilica]] and despite a slight hitch when Damus accidentally jammed Skids's grappling hook by touching his arm, the plan succeeded. {{storylink|Shadowplay (Conclusion): An Intimate Beheading|An Intimate Beheading}}

Following Shockwave's capture and brainwashing by the [[Senate]], the Outliers stuck with Orion Pax and aided him in defending a [[hot spot (phenomenon)|hot spot]] in [[Alyon]] from [[Sentinel Prime (G1)|Sentinel Prime]]'s forces. By this time Damus had gotten replacement hands and learned to use his power from a distance, utilizing it to break down [[Elite Guard]] vehicles from afar. With help from a group of time travelers from the ''[[Lost Light]]'' of the future, the group took down a weapons platform sent to irradiate the hot spot's [[spark]]s, then had their memories of the travelers wiped by [[Chromedome (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Chromedome]].

[[File:PermanentRevolution-Backwards.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.2|[[Keith David|"And what would you have your Justice Division do?"]]]]

During the whole affair, Orion Pax recommended reading Megatron's treatises around Glitch: "powerful stuff," he said. Considering Megatron's stated reasons for converting him to the Decepticon cause, we can only assume that he listened a little too well. {{storylink|Elegant Chaos Part 1: All Our Parlous Yesterdays|All Our Parlous Yesterdays}}

Exactly how and when Damus joined the Decepticons is unknown, but Megatron would later claim he had deliberately "corrupted" Tarn to hurt ''someone'' and prove a point. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 3: Your Fierce Tears|Your Fierce Tears}} Damus joined early enough to be at the beginning of Megatron's march across Cybertron. Rebuilt under the supervision of [[Lobe]], {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} Damus's power and endurance was considered by [[Prowl (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Prowl]] to put him on the same level as a [[Phase Sixer]]. {{storylink|Remembrance Day}} His mask was taken as a sign of Decepticon supremacy but, at least so he told himself, it was really so nobody would notice when he closed his eyes around Decepticon brutality. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} In one particular battle during the war, Damus tussled with [[Thunder Clash|Thunderclash]]. {{storylink|Shining Armor issue 3|Shining Armor #3}}

[[File:SpeakMemory2-results.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|"How's it hanging? ... Oh... oh. That dude is ''really'' hanging there. My bad." "Stop it, you uncultured mech. You came here to report, not make puns."]]

Damus became commandant of [[Grindcore (prison)|Grindcore prison]], where he became associated with "[[The Empyrean Suite]]", playing it at maximum volume to drown out the screams of the prisoners he executed via smelting. {{storylink|Speak, Memory: Part 1}} In this, he was trying to deliberately bastardize a song composed by [[Eucryphia]] to celebrate [[Prima]] and the [[Citadel of Light]]. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} One of his prisoners, soon after the prison's smelting chamber had malfunctioned, was his old comrade Skids. Damus bargained with Skids to fix it, telling him it was a "teleport chamber" and fifty prisoners would be released from Grindcore for this, and was able to con Skids into thinking that he could be trusted. Skids was relaxed enough around Damus to take praise genuinely and push for more freed prisoners later.

In the end, Damus sent all fifty prisoners to the "teleporation chamber" and cruelly forced Skids to watch as it was used to execute a group of prisoners, including Skids's cellmate [[Quark]], melting them down into raw materials for use in the creation of [[M.T.O.]]s. Damus deliberately used the event to cripple Skids' religious faith. {{storylink|Speak, Memory: Part 1}} {{storylink|Speak, Memory! (Part 2)}}

After Damus became leader of the D.J.D. as "Tarn" (and would never again use his old name), his powers developed to the point where he could shut down sentient machines using his voice alone. Under him, the group became ''very'' focused on paperwork: the [[Decepticon Empire]] required good administration, in his view. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} When [[Grimlock (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Grimlock]], who had briefly defected to the Decepticons, {{storylink|Animals}} {{storylink|Hasbro Heroes Sourcebook issue 2|Grimlock profile}} returned to the Autobot ranks, Megatron was so incensed by the betrayal that he ordered the DJD to bump the Dynobot leader up to the top of the list. In a subsequent battle against Grimlock, Tarn had his face badly mangled by his opponent. {{storylink|The Ties That Bind (issue)|The Ties That Bind}}

Some two hundred years ago, Tarn was present at Megatron's current command center when [[Starscream (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Starscream]] returned from a botched mission on [[Xetaxxis]]. {{storylink|Shining Armor issue 5|Shining Armor #5}}

[[File:LL14-tarn-unmasked.jpg|thumb|There's an ironic joke about [[empurata]] in here if someone cares to find it.]]

Some time later, the DJD established a base on the world of [[Messatine]] in order to obtain the "Nuke" superfuel there. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} Tarn coerced [[Pharma (G1)|Pharma]], head surgeon of the planet's Autobot medical facility [[Delphi]], into helping feed his addiction by supplying him with an ever-increasing number of transformation cogs from deceased patients, in exchange for the hospital being unmolested by his team. Pharma would eventually cut off Tarn's supply by orchestrating the facility's shutdown. {{storylink|How Ratchet Got His Hands Back}}

In 2009, following the [[Surge (event)|Surge]], Tarn led the D.J.D. to [[Garrus-9]] to find and eliminate his old teacher Shockwave, who was now the most wanted Decepticon on [[The List|the D.J.D's master hit list]]. After intercepting his vessel, however, they discovered that Shockwave had prepared for this eventuality by staffing his ship with crewmembers who were also on the list, in the hopes of bartering their lives for his. Tarn opted to ignore the offer, using his voice to slowly talk the old Senator to death, but Shockwave was able to blast the radio in time. When Shockwave's backup arrived in the form of [[Bludgeon (G1)|Bludgeon]] and the [[Pretender Monster|Monstructor Six]], the DJD retreated. {{storylink|The Ties That Bind (issue)|The Ties That Bind}}

[[File:Tarn transforms MTMTE08.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.2|He's got friends on the other side.]]

Though the war formally ended in 2012, Tarn and his group refused to give up the cause—indeed, they would only deign to stand down when Megatron personally commanded it—and continued to hunt down those Decepticons that had betrayed the cause and hadn't yet returned to Cybertron. {{storylink|Scavengers (Part 2): Who's Afraid of the DJD?|Who's Afraid of the DJD?}} Informed by Decepticon spy [[Brainstorm (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Brainstorm]] that high-priority target [[Overlord (Masterforce)|Overlord]] was aboard the starship ''[[Lost Light]]'', Tarn and the D.J.D. continued to work through their list of offenders as they waited for Brainstorm to drop the ship's shielding so they could pick up Overlord's signal. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} One such unfortunate was [[Black Shadow (Victory)|Black Shadow]], whom Tarn explosively finished off with his deadly voice, after which the team set course of the planet [[Clemency]] to hunt down Decepticon deserter [[Fulcrum]]. {{storylink|Rules of Disengagement (issue)|Rules of Disengagement}} Arriving on Clemency, the team discovered a mysterious [[stasis pod|stasis tube]] awaiting them; when Tarn investigated, he found it contained a deranged, [[circuit speeder]]-enhanced [[Grimlock (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Grimlock]], unleashed by Fulcrum and his new allies, the [[Scavenger (group)|Scavengers]]. Tarn was soon able to subdue the brain-damaged [[Dinobot (G1)|Dinobot]], but was then crushed beneath the foot of a [[Cybernought]] battle-mech that [[Crankcase (G1)|Crankcase]] had activated. Tarn recovered in time to hear Fulcrum deliver a speech to all assembled about Decepticon ideals before apparently committing suicide. At that point, [[Kaon (DJD)|Kaon]] detected Overlord's long-awaited signal, and Tarn ordered the D.J.D. to head out—but not before warning the surviving Scavengers that their names had now made it onto [[The List]]. {{storylink|Scavengers (Part 2): Who's Afraid of the DJD?|Who's Afraid of the DJD?}}

Tracking Overlord's signal, the D.J.D. found the ''Lost Light''—which was, unbeknownst to Tarn and his team, actually one of ''two'' versions of the ship created by a malfunction of its [[quantum generator]]s—near the planet [[Ofsted XVII]]. Despite having promised Brainstorm they would not harm any of the crew, the discovery that the traitor [[Drift (G1)|Deadlock]] was aboard the ship them set the D.J.D. off, and after dealing with him, they set about murdering the rest of the ship. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} Tarn personally destroyed [[Ultra Magnus (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Ultra Magnus]], [[Swerve (G1)|Swerve]], and [[Cyclonus (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Cyclonus]], and forced a large portion of the crew to transform before executing them, leaving their transformation cogs warm for location and harvesting. Eventually, Tarn removed a still-restrained and suicidal Overlord's head with a chainsaw, and the D.J.D. left the ship. {{storylink|slaughterhouse}} {{storylink|slaughterhouse Part 2: The Road Not Taken|The Road Not Taken}}

[[File:ThePermanentRevolution-goingtowar.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|'''Cause when push'' ''Comes to shove'' ''I will send a fully armed battalion'' ''To remind you of my love'' <s>for the cause</s>]]

Sometime during the months that followed, Kaon spontaneously began [[universal killswitch|writhing in agony]] right in front of Tarn, who tried to get his teammate to tell him what he could do to help, before the mysterious effect subsided. {{storylink|Remain in Light 4 of 5: Arm the Lonely|Arm the Lonely}} Also during this time, the D.J.D. welcomed a new member—[[Nickel]], last survivor of a Cybertronian colony wiped out by the [[Black Block Consortia]]. At Nickel's insistence, they returned to Ofsted XVII to salvage the quantum engines from the derelict ''Lost Light''. They wound up arriving in the middle of a battle between the Consortia and the [[Galactic Council]], who teamed up against the Cybertronians. Under attack by both sides and faced with additional enemy reinforcements, Tarn was forced to retreat, leaving Vos and Kaon behind. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} Tarn eventually gifted Nickel a phone onto which he recorded a message she could use to paralyze people who were threatening her. {{storylink|Kill All 'Cons}}

The diminished D.J.D. returned to their duties, though Tarn began to weary of the work. After apprehending the [[Sparkeater (creature)|Sparkeater]]-worshipping [[Blip]], Tarn was about to end his life using his voice, until Blip used his last words to demand that Tarn remove his mask. Affronted, Tarn allowed [[Helex (DJD)|Helex]] and [[Tesarus (DJD)|Tesarus]] to finish Blip instead, averting his gaze beneath his mask. Tarn subsequently ordered performance reviews for the team, and nearly came to blows with Tesarus when he implied that abandoning Vos and Kaon was not the Decepticon thing to do. Calming himself, Tarn explained that they were returning to Ofsted XVII again in order to recover their bodies, but was interrupted by Helex's announcement that Vos and Kaon had returned to the ship safe, sound, and with something unbelievable: a postwar edition of ''[[Towards Peace]]'' that revealed Megatron himself had defected from the Decepticons.

His world shattered by this discovery, Tarn had the D.J.D. return to Messatine, where he attempted to fatally overdose on Nuke. Finding even the sensation of dying disappointing, Tarn opened his eyes to see a distraught Nickel pressed against the glass of his fueling capsule. The sight of her triggered a revelation for Tarn: she was a 'bot who had experienced first-hand the threat the predominantly-organic universe posed to Cybertronians, and who had fully embraced the Decepticon cause despite living her life outside of the war. The cause, Tarn now realized, was bigger than any one 'bot—bigger than Megatron. Galvanized, Tarn set up a meeting with the rogue Decepticon warlord [[Deathsaurus (Victory)|Deathsaurus]] aboard his stolen [[Warworld]]. Knowing full well he was on the D.J.D.'s list, Deathsaurus pre-emptively attacked Tarn upon his arrival, even deactivating his audio receptors to protect himself from Tarn's voice, but Tarn was able to communicate with him and his troops through [[inter-Decepticon radio]] and explained the reason for his presence: he wished them to ally with him, in return for their being taken off The List. Deathsaurus agreed on the condition that Tarn kill the rest of the D.J.D., which Tarn refused to do—which was the response Deathsaurus had been hoping for. With their alliance cemented, Tarn declared their new objective: kill the traitorous Megatron and all of his allies! {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}}

[[File:TarnAltMode.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|left|I'm about to drop the hammer and dispense some indiscriminate justice!]]

The allied forces of Tarn and Deathsaurus proceeded to attack the [[Necroworld|Necrobot's world]], killing [[Mortilus|its sole inhabitant]] and using his machinery to broadcast a message that lured Megatron and all those aboard the ''Lost Light'' sympathetic to him down to the planet. When they arrived, the villains shot them down and cornered them in the Necrobot's fortress. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light: (1) How Bright Their Frail Deeds|How Bright Their Frail Deeds}} As an act of indirect torture, Tarn had their forces pull back, warning Megatron and his comrades that they would return at sunset, leaving them to stew in their own fear. Returning to the ''[[Peaceful Tyranny]]'', Tarn spent the time showing off his collection of Megatron's writings to Deathsaurus, and discussing tactics with his men; he did not take Tesarus's concerns about the Necrobot's fortress's storm shield seriously, but the discussion was interrupted by a call on Tarn's personal communicator from Megatron himself. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 2: The Sun in Flight|The Sun in Flight}}

[[File:YourFierceTears-byebyekaon.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|Give me your...you know the drill.]]

Tarn agreed to a meeting with Megatron alone, whereupon his former leader agreed to surrender in exchange for the rest of the Autobots being allowed to go free. Saddened and disgusted to truly see with his own eyes how far his idol had fallen, Tarn beat him to within an inch of his life, and was just about to deliver the killing shot when [[Overlord (Masterforce)|Overlord]] suddenly appeared, insisting that it was his right to end Megatron's life. Both refused to stand down, resulting in a bickering battle between the two that gave Megatron the chance to escape. Realizing their folly, Tarn and Overlord agreed to a truce, though Overlord continued to needle Tarn all the way back to the ''Peaceful Tyranny''. The final straw came when a distraught Kaon arrived with the news that the Autobots had kidnapped the D.J.D.'s [[Dominus Ambus|pet sparkeater]]; determined to cut out of both the hearts of himself and his men the compassion that he saw as Megatron's downfall, Tarn slew Kaon on the spot, tearing his head from his shoulders. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 3: Your Fierce Tears|Your Fierce Tears}}

At sundown, Tarn led the Decepticons in their attack, {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 4: At Close of Day|At Close of Day}} playing "The Empyrean Suite" across the battlefield as battle commenced. He initially hung back with Deathsaurus, but joined the fight in earnest after a temporary power-up acquired by the Autobots wore off, ripping [[Ravage (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Ravage]] clean in half. Unfortunately, that turned out to be just the thing to bring Megatron out onto the battlefield, cutting swathes through the Decepticon troops. Tarn surreptitiously ordered the D.J.D. to retreat, whilst demanding Deathsaurus's troops enact a suicidal assault on Megatron. When the ex-Decepticon's new fusion cannon was destroyed, he unexpectedly sunk to his knees in panicked defeat, and Tarn and Overlord moved to strike the final blow together. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 5: Rage, Rage|Rage, Rage}}

[[File:mtmte55 goodbye tarn.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.4|You will die alone. Unmourned. And unloved.]]
Their shots, however, were reflected by the sudden activation of a forcefield by Megatron. Whilst Overlord and Deathsaurus abandoned the planet, unwilling to waste their time and troops respectively on Megatron, Tarn and the other remaining members of the D.J.D. assaulted the forcefield until they could finally force their way in. Things went very badly wrong after that, as soon as the D.J.D. were all inside Megatron rose to his feet and chided Tarn, ripping the D.J.D. leader's fusion cannon off in disgust. With dawning horror the D.J.D. realised everything was all according to Megatron's plan–after years of study, he had finally managed to interlink his systems with a black hole to harvest [[antimatter]], and he had no intention of letting any of them leave alive. With his former enforcers now trapped, Megatron tore through them with tendrils of antimatter, speaking their true names at the moments of their deaths. Tarn was saved for last, his mask ripped off as Megatron called him by his previous name: "Glitch". Tarn first begged for Megatron to be "reasonable", then tried fake bravado, just as many of his own victims had done... and with as little success.

Completing his denouncement of his former enforcer, Megatron informed Damus that "Everything you did was for nothing" and obliterated him with antimatter. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 6: Do Not Go Gentle|Do Not Go Gentle}}

Much later, when Nickel was on the verge of being killed by [[Scorponok (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Scorponok]], she used Tarn's voicemail message to paralyze the ex-Decepticon, allowing her and the [[Scavenger (group)|Scavengers]] to escape. {{storylink|Kill All 'Cons}}
{{-}}

====The Functionist Universe====
[[File:This Machine Kills Fascists-Functionist Glitch.jpg|thumb|"There must always be a Megatron."]]
Glitch was amongst a group of [[Anti-Vocationist League]] members who attended a secret meeting beneath [[Nova Point]]. There, he listened to the universally-displaced Megatron speak about how to fight the [[Functionist Council]] for the goal of "peace through empathy". {{storylink|Dissolution Part 6: This Machine Kills Fascists|This Machine Kills Fascists}}

===''Kre-O'' online manga===
[[File:KreO-webcomic-9-Tarn.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.6]]
Tarn was part of [[Bludgeon (Kre-O)|Bludgeon]]'s forces when they uncovered the [[Red Bucket]]. {{storylink|Treasure Competition! Defeat with Block Power!}}

{{-}}

===''TransTech''===
An [[Lowtech|Offworlder]] in [[Axiom Nexus]], Tarn was a judge of ''[[Cybertron's Got Talent]]'' in the wake of [[Ego (TransTech)|Ego]]'s death. Tarn enjoyed calling out sub-par transformations as part of his judging. {{storylink|Andromeda - Axiom Nexus News Reporter|Andromeda - Axiom Nexus News, 2015/05/14}}

===An Arcee Sort of Day===
After the Great War ended, Damus joined a [[Unicron/Generation 1|Unicron]] cult, warning a passing [[Arcee (G1)|Arcee]] that the world was ending. {{storylink|An Arcee Sort of Day}}

===2019 IDW continuity===
Damus was enjoying a drug den when [[Nightbeat (G1)|Nightbeat]] kicked down the door and requested both calm and [[Sixshot (G1)|Sixshot]]'s squad from the [[War of the Threefold Spark]]. {{storylink|The Change In Your Nature Part One}}
{{-}}

==Games==
===''Transformers Legends''===
Tarn and the rest of the DJD pursued Black Shadow for taking bribes from the Autobots. The DJD found their target hiding on planet Clemency, and dispatched them with extreme prejudice as Tarn set course for their next assignment. {{storylink|Rules of Disengagement (Legends)|Rules of Disengagement}}
{{-}}

==Merchandise==
===Flame Toys===
[[File:FlameToysTarn.jpg|upright=1.66|thumb|"You'll suffer till the end of time, enduring tortures, most of which rhyme, trapped forever here in Robot Hell!"]]
*'''Tarn''' (August [[2018]])
**''Accessories'': mask, 2 fusion cannons, 2 back cannons, clean mask (exclusive), 2 vocal effector cannons (exclusive)

:Produced by [[Flame Toys]] as part of their ''Kuro Kara Kuri'' line, Tarn is a detailed non-transforming action figure featuring [[die-cast]] parts and LEDs in his head, chest, and legs. He comes with two fusion cannons that can be mounted on his arm or combined into one giant handheld weapon, two guns that attach to his back and a removable mask. If purchased via D4toys.com, SEN-TI-DEN Hong Kong, or events attended by Flame Toys, he also includes an alternate mask without scars and two speakers that can replace the back guns.

*'''Tarn (Power Burst ver.)''' ([[July 26]], [[2019]])
:Debuted by Flame Toys at ACGHK 2019, "Tarn (Power Burst ver.)" is a chrome-plated redeco of the above figure, limited to 300 pieces: 200 at ACGHK 2019 and 100 at D4toys.com.
{{-}}

==Notes==
[[File:Tarn BlackShadow RulesofDisengagement.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|left|"What are you gonna do, talk me to death?" "Yup"]]
[[File: Tfhero_tarn_lookalike.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|I don't really see it, to be honest.]]
*[[Alex Milne]] said in a Facebook interview that his ideal voice for Tarn is [[Keith David]].<ref>[https://www.facebook.com/notes/transformers/transformers-more-than-meets-the-eye-vol-2-alex-milne-interview/395646703838863 Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye vol. 2 Alex Milne interview]</ref>
*Like all non-toy robot [[Kreon]]s in the ''Kre-O'' manga, Kreon Tarn is made from existing ''Kre-O'' parts, but extensively "painted". He uses the [[Ratchet (Kre-O)|Ratchet]] helmet, the [[Megatron (Kre-O)|Megatron]] arm-cannon, and some kind of setup to wear the Bludgeon treads on his back.
*For some time, the popular speculation among the readership of ''More than Meets the Eye'' was that Tarn had originally been [[Roller (IDW)|Roller]]. [[Elegant Chaos Part 1: All Our Parlous Yesterdays#Other trivia|''More than Meets the Eye'' #36]] dropped a number of clues to further this theory before the actual revelation in [[The Dying of the Light Part 6: Do Not Go Gentle|issue #55]], which revealed these to be nothing more than red herrings. James Roberts cheekily had Roller reveal himself as still alive and intact on the page right after Velocity asked who Tarn really was and just before the actual unmasking.
*Damus's city of origin was never revealed in fiction, but was stated by [[James Roberts]] to be... Tarn.<ref>James Roberts Q&A at TFNation 2017</ref>
*Tarn's design bears a fairly strong resemblance to a piece of concept artwork for ''Transformers: Hero'', or what would eventually be developed into ''[[Transformers Animated (franchise)|Transformers Animated]]''. Alex Milne says he's never seen it before,<ref>[https://twitter.com/markerguru/status/1204197465248931840 Twitter conversation with Alex Milne on 9 December, 2019]</ref> which shouldn't come as much of a surprise; in a franchise that's this big, and that's been around this long, some ideas are good enough to be had twice.
*Not only does he wear the Decepticon insignia on his face, his entire torso appears designed to evoke it too.
*Damus's name is derived from {{w|Nostradamus}}, a historical figure tied to prophecy.<ref>[https://twitter.com/jroberts332/status/1058379500898140161 Twitter conversation with James Roberts on 2 November, 2018]</ref>
*The [[Perfect Decepticon]]s from ''[[Transformers: Cyberverse (cartoon)|Transformers: Cyberverse]]'' are designed to resemble Tarn.
*Tarn was mentioned as a phase sixer by James Roberts on Twitter, however, it is unsure if he means ununtrinium enhanced warrior or just the title. Since Tarn clearly wasn't enhanced by ununtrinium, it is more likely the latter.

===Foreign names===
*''Japanese:'' '''Tarn''' (ターン ''Tān'')

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:Anti-Vocationist League]]
[[Category:Decepticon leaders]]
[[Category:IDW (2005) Decepticons]]
[[Category:IDW (2019) Transformers]]
[[Category:Kre-O Decepticons]]
[[Category:Kreons]]
[[Category:Point One Percenters]]
[[Category:TransTech Decepticons]]

Tarn (G1)

2021-07-21T14:05:02Z

Mi5FiRE:

{{factions|decepticon}}
{{disambigm|Tarn (polity)|Glitch (disambiguation)}}
:''Tarn is a [[Decepticon]] from the [[2005 IDW continuity|2005 IDW portion]] of the [[Generation 1 continuity family|Generation 1]] [[continuity family]].''

[[File:MTMTE Tarn Alex Milne.jpg|thumb|upright=1.67|He kills you with culture... and also ''violence''.]]
'''Tarn''' is an eloquent [[Decepticon]]. He enjoys nothing more than playing beautiful [[The Empyrean Suite|music]] as he waxes poetic quoting ''[[Towards Peace]]'' and other philosophical works by [[Megatron (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Megatron]]. He tends to indulge these pleasures at the same time he's using his specially modulated vocal processor to cause the [[Decepticon Justice Division]]'s latest transgressor's spark to self-destruct. The leader of the D.J.D., Tarn epitomizes the mentality of the team. He is beyond zealous in his devotion to Megatron's cause, going so far as to emboss the Decepticon [[insignia]] onto his own faceplate. No traitor, no coward is capable of escaping his team.

Despite appearances, Tarn is a mess of contradictions. Viewing himself as the central pillar of the D.J.D., he can be as brutally violent as any other Decepticon, but views himself as a bureaucrat and his team as his administration. He believes his actions are entirely justified, yet sometimes his thoughts are a constant stream of self-denigration. He works hard to run a tight but fair ship, and is not above taking in an open-minded, needy stray. On the other hand, for all his thoughts of sophistication and control, Tarn can go from affable to life-threatening at the least provocation. His addictive tendencies have led to him burning out his original [[transformation cog]] years ago, and his reliance on the power-enhancing [[Nucleon (substance)|Nuke]] can lead to his losing himself to the lust for violence. And have no doubt that while he may try and convince himself otherwise, Tarn is a truly sociopathic murderer. Ultimately whether Tarn is a monster or not is irrelevant. His utter devotion to the Decepticon cause means he will ensure the fear of Megatron is put into any that would consider abandoning their noble goals.

{{quote|If you want to break someone—mentally, physically, emotionally—wait until they're happy. Let them live and love and thrive. Once they recognize the value of a life well lived... THAT'S when you move in for the kill. Because you can't take anything from someone who has nothing to lose.|Tarn|"[[The Dying of the Light Part 2: The Sun in Flight|The Sun in Flight]]" teaser}}

==Fiction==
===2005 IDW continuity===
{{First|[[How Ratchet Got His Hands Back|''More than Meets the Eye'' #5]] (shadowy image); [[Rules of Disengagement (issue)|#7]] (full appearance, as Tarn); [[Shadowplay, Part 2: Patternism|#10]] (as Glitch)}}

[[File:Ratchet glitch shadowplay.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|Glitch is [[Wolverine (Marvel)|the one with the claws]].]]
'''Damus''' was [[reproduction|forged]], born an exceptionally powerful [[Point One Percenter]] {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} and an [[Outlier (group)|outlier]] who possessed the ability to render non-sentient machinery inoperative by touching it, but with one drawback: the power hurt him every time he used it. Before the [[Great War (G1)|war]], Damus attended the [[Jhiaxian Academy of Advanced Technology]] where they possibly attempted to analyze his brain-wave patterns and kept his outlier status hidden from the [[Senate]] and [[Functionist Council]].

At some point, he crossed the [[Senate]] and was subjected to [[empurata]]: his hands and head replaced to mark him out as someone to shun. After that, to tie in with his power, he started to call himself '''Glitch'''. {{storylink|Shadowplay, Part 2: Patternism|Patternism}}

When [[Optimus Prime (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Orion Pax]] devised a plan to steal a bomb disguised as the [[Matrix of Leadership|Matrix]] from [[Nominus Prime]]'s corpse his [[Shockwave (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Senator friend]] recruited Damus, [[Windcharger (G1)|Windcharger]], and [[Skids (G1)|Skids]] from the Academy to participate in the heist. Damus's part in the plan was to deactivate the deflector beams above the [[Primal Basilica]] and despite a slight hitch when Damus accidentally jammed Skids's grappling hook by touching his arm, the plan succeeded. {{storylink|Shadowplay (Conclusion): An Intimate Beheading|An Intimate Beheading}}

Following Shockwave's capture and brainwashing by the [[Senate]], the Outliers stuck with Orion Pax and aided him in defending a [[hot spot (phenomenon)|hot spot]] in [[Alyon]] from [[Sentinel Prime (G1)|Sentinel Prime]]'s forces. By this time Damus had gotten replacement hands and learned to use his power from a distance, utilizing it to break down [[Elite Guard]] vehicles from afar. With help from a group of time travelers from the ''[[Lost Light]]'' of the future, the group took down a weapons platform sent to irradiate the hot spot's [[spark]]s, then had their memories of the travelers wiped by [[Chromedome (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Chromedome]].

[[File:PermanentRevolution-Backwards.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.2|[[Keith David|"And what would you have your Justice Division do?"]]]]

During the whole affair, Orion Pax recommended reading Megatron's treatises around Glitch: "powerful stuff," he said. Considering Megatron's stated reasons for converting him to the Decepticon cause, we can only assume that he listened a little too well. {{storylink|Elegant Chaos Part 1: All Our Parlous Yesterdays|All Our Parlous Yesterdays}}

Exactly how and when Damus joined the Decepticons is unknown, but Megatron would later claim he had deliberately "corrupted" Tarn to hurt ''someone'' and prove a point. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 3: Your Fierce Tears|Your Fierce Tears}} Damus joined early enough to be at the beginning of Megatron's march across Cybertron. Rebuilt under the supervision of [[Lobe]], {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} Damus's power and endurance was considered by [[Prowl (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Prowl]] to put him on the same level as a [[Phase Sixer]]. {{storylink|Remembrance Day}} His mask was taken as a sign of Decepticon supremacy but, at least so he told himself, it was really so nobody would notice when he closed his eyes around Decepticon brutality. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} In one particular battle during the war, Damus tussled with [[Thunder Clash|Thunderclash]]. {{storylink|Shining Armor issue 3|Shining Armor #3}}

[[File:SpeakMemory2-results.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|"How's it hanging? ... Oh... oh. That dude is ''really'' hanging there. My bad." "Stop it, you uncultured mech. You came here to report, not make puns."]]

Damus became commandant of [[Grindcore (prison)|Grindcore prison]], where he became associated with "[[The Empyrean Suite]]", playing it at maximum volume to drown out the screams of the prisoners he executed via smelting. {{storylink|Speak, Memory: Part 1}} In this, he was trying to deliberately bastardize a song composed by [[Eucryphia]] to celebrate [[Prima]] and the [[Citadel of Light]]. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} One of his prisoners, soon after the prison's smelting chamber had malfunctioned, was his old comrade Skids. Damus bargained with Skids to fix it, telling him it was a "teleport chamber" and fifty prisoners would be released from Grindcore for this, and was able to con Skids into thinking that he could be trusted. Skids was relaxed enough around Damus to take praise genuinely and push for more freed prisoners later.

In the end, Damus sent all fifty prisoners to the "teleporation chamber" and cruelly forced Skids to watch as it was used to execute a group of prisoners, including Skids's cellmate [[Quark]], melting them down into raw materials for use in the creation of [[M.T.O.]]s. Damus deliberately used the event to cripple Skids' religious faith. {{storylink|Speak, Memory: Part 1}} {{storylink|Speak, Memory! (Part 2)}}

After Damus became leader of the D.J.D. as "Tarn" (and would never again use his old name), his powers developed to the point where he could shut down sentient machines using his voice alone. Under him, the group became ''very'' focused on paperwork: the [[Decepticon Empire]] required good administration, in his view. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} When [[Grimlock (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Grimlock]], who had briefly defected to the Decepticons, {{storylink|Animals}} {{storylink|Hasbro Heroes Sourcebook issue 2|Grimlock profile}} returned to the Autobot ranks, Megatron was so incensed by the betrayal that he ordered the DJD to bump the Dynobot leader up to the top of the list. In a subsequent battle against Grimlock, Tarn had his face badly mangled by his opponent. {{storylink|The Ties That Bind (issue)|The Ties That Bind}}

Some two hundred years ago, Tarn was present at Megatron's current command center when [[Starscream (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Starscream]] returned from a botched mission on [[Xetaxxis]]. {{storylink|Shining Armor issue 5|Shining Armor #5}}

[[File:LL14-tarn-unmasked.jpg|thumb|There's an ironic joke about [[empurata]] in here if someone cares to find it.]]

Some time later, the DJD established a base on the world of [[Messatine]] in order to obtain the "Nuke" superfuel there. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} Tarn coerced [[Pharma (G1)|Pharma]], head surgeon of the planet's Autobot medical facility [[Delphi]], into helping feed his addiction by supplying him with an ever-increasing number of transformation cogs from deceased patients, in exchange for the hospital being unmolested by his team. Pharma would eventually cut off Tarn's supply by orchestrating the facility's shutdown. {{storylink|How Ratchet Got His Hands Back}}

In 2009, following the [[Surge (event)|Surge]], Tarn led the D.J.D. to [[Garrus-9]] to find and eliminate his old teacher Shockwave, who was now the most wanted Decepticon on [[The List|the D.J.D's master hit list]]. After intercepting his vessel, however, they discovered that Shockwave had prepared for this eventuality by staffing his ship with crewmembers who were also on the list, in the hopes of bartering their lives for his. Tarn opted to ignore the offer, using his voice to slowly talk the old Senator to death, but Shockwave was able to blast the radio in time. When Shockwave's backup arrived in the form of [[Bludgeon (G1)|Bludgeon]] and the [[Pretender Monster|Monstructor Six]], the DJD retreated. {{storylink|The Ties That Bind (issue)|The Ties That Bind}}

[[File:Tarn transforms MTMTE08.jpg|left|thumb|upright=1.2|He's got friends on the other side.]]

Though the war formally ended in 2012, Tarn and his group refused to give up the cause—indeed, they would only deign to stand down when Megatron personally commanded it—and continued to hunt down those Decepticons that had betrayed the cause and hadn't yet returned to Cybertron. {{storylink|Scavengers (Part 2): Who's Afraid of the DJD?|Who's Afraid of the DJD?}} Informed by Decepticon spy [[Brainstorm (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Brainstorm]] that high-priority target [[Overlord (Masterforce)|Overlord]] was aboard the starship ''[[Lost Light]]'', Tarn and the D.J.D. continued to work through their list of offenders as they waited for Brainstorm to drop the ship's shielding so they could pick up Overlord's signal. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} One such unfortunate was [[Black Shadow (Victory)|Black Shadow]], whom Tarn explosively finished off with his deadly voice, after which the team set course of the planet [[Clemency]] to hunt down Decepticon deserter [[Fulcrum]]. {{storylink|Rules of Disengagement (issue)|Rules of Disengagement}} Arriving on Clemency, the team discovered a mysterious [[stasis pod|stasis tube]] awaiting them; when Tarn investigated, he found it contained a deranged, [[circuit speeder]]-enhanced [[Grimlock (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Grimlock]], unleashed by Fulcrum and his new allies, the [[Scavenger (group)|Scavengers]]. Tarn was soon able to subdue the brain-damaged [[Dinobot (G1)|Dinobot]], but was then crushed beneath the foot of a [[Cybernought]] battle-mech that [[Crankcase (G1)|Crankcase]] had activated. Tarn recovered in time to hear Fulcrum deliver a speech to all assembled about Decepticon ideals before apparently committing suicide. At that point, [[Kaon (DJD)|Kaon]] detected Overlord's long-awaited signal, and Tarn ordered the D.J.D. to head out—but not before warning the surviving Scavengers that their names had now made it onto [[The List]]. {{storylink|Scavengers (Part 2): Who's Afraid of the DJD?|Who's Afraid of the DJD?}}

Tracking Overlord's signal, the D.J.D. found the ''Lost Light''—which was, unbeknownst to Tarn and his team, actually one of ''two'' versions of the ship created by a malfunction of its [[quantum generator]]s—near the planet [[Ofsted XVII]]. Despite having promised Brainstorm they would not harm any of the crew, the discovery that the traitor [[Drift (G1)|Deadlock]] was aboard the ship them set the D.J.D. off, and after dealing with him, they set about murdering the rest of the ship. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} Tarn personally destroyed [[Ultra Magnus (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Ultra Magnus]], [[Swerve (G1)|Swerve]], and [[Cyclonus (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Cyclonus]], and forced a large portion of the crew to transform before executing them, leaving their transformation cogs warm for location and harvesting. Eventually, Tarn removed a still-restrained and suicidal Overlord's head with a chainsaw, and the D.J.D. left the ship. {{storylink|slaughterhouse}} {{storylink|slaughterhouse Part 2: The Road Not Taken|The Road Not Taken}}

[[File:ThePermanentRevolution-goingtowar.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|'''Cause when push'' ''Comes to shove'' ''I will send a fully armed battalion'' ''To remind you of my love'' <s>for the cause</s>]]

Sometime during the months that followed, Kaon spontaneously began [[universal killswitch|writhing in agony]] right in front of Tarn, who tried to get his teammate to tell him what he could do to help, before the mysterious effect subsided. {{storylink|Remain in Light 4 of 5: Arm the Lonely|Arm the Lonely}} Also during this time, the D.J.D. welcomed a new member—[[Nickel]], last survivor of a Cybertronian colony wiped out by the [[Black Block Consortia]]. At Nickel's insistence, they returned to Ofsted XVII to salvage the quantum engines from the derelict ''Lost Light''. They wound up arriving in the middle of a battle between the Consortia and the [[Galactic Council]], who teamed up against the Cybertronians. Under attack by both sides and faced with additional enemy reinforcements, Tarn was forced to retreat, leaving Vos and Kaon behind. {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}} Tarn eventually gifted Nickel a phone onto which he recorded a message she could use to paralyze people who were threatening her. {{storylink|Kill All 'Cons}}

The diminished D.J.D. returned to their duties, though Tarn began to weary of the work. After apprehending the [[Sparkeater (creature)|Sparkeater]]-worshipping [[Blip]], Tarn was about to end his life using his voice, until Blip used his last words to demand that Tarn remove his mask. Affronted, Tarn allowed [[Helex (DJD)|Helex]] and [[Tesarus (DJD)|Tesarus]] to finish Blip instead, averting his gaze beneath his mask. Tarn subsequently ordered performance reviews for the team, and nearly came to blows with Tesarus when he implied that abandoning Vos and Kaon was not the Decepticon thing to do. Calming himself, Tarn explained that they were returning to Ofsted XVII again in order to recover their bodies, but was interrupted by Helex's announcement that Vos and Kaon had returned to the ship safe, sound, and with something unbelievable: a postwar edition of ''[[Towards Peace]]'' that revealed Megatron himself had defected from the Decepticons.

His world shattered by this discovery, Tarn had the D.J.D. return to Messatine, where he attempted to fatally overdose on Nuke. Finding even the sensation of dying disappointing, Tarn opened his eyes to see a distraught Nickel pressed against the glass of his fueling capsule. The sight of her triggered a revelation for Tarn: she was a 'bot who had experienced first-hand the threat the predominantly-organic universe posed to Cybertronians, and who had fully embraced the Decepticon cause despite living her life outside of the war. The cause, Tarn now realized, was bigger than any one 'bot—bigger than Megatron. Galvanized, Tarn set up a meeting with the rogue Decepticon warlord [[Deathsaurus (Victory)|Deathsaurus]] aboard his stolen [[Warworld]]. Knowing full well he was on the D.J.D.'s list, Deathsaurus pre-emptively attacked Tarn upon his arrival, even deactivating his audio receptors to protect himself from Tarn's voice, but Tarn was able to communicate with him and his troops through [[inter-Decepticon radio]] and explained the reason for his presence: he wished them to ally with him, in return for their being taken off The List. Deathsaurus agreed on the condition that Tarn kill the rest of the D.J.D., which Tarn refused to do—which was the response Deathsaurus had been hoping for. With their alliance cemented, Tarn declared their new objective: kill the traitorous Megatron and all of his allies! {{storylink|The Permanent Revolution}}

[[File:TarnAltMode.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|left|I'm about to drop the hammer and dispense some indiscriminate justice!]]

The allied forces of Tarn and Deathsaurus proceeded to attack the [[Necroworld|Necrobot's world]], killing [[Mortilus|its sole inhabitant]] and using his machinery to broadcast a message that lured Megatron and all those aboard the ''Lost Light'' sympathetic to him down to the planet. When they arrived, the villains shot them down and cornered them in the Necrobot's fortress. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light: (1) How Bright Their Frail Deeds|How Bright Their Frail Deeds}} As an act of indirect torture, Tarn had their forces pull back, warning Megatron and his comrades that they would return at sunset, leaving them to stew in their own fear. Returning to the ''[[Peaceful Tyranny]]'', Tarn spent the time showing off his collection of Megatron's writings to Deathsaurus, and discussing tactics with his men; he did not take Tesarus's concerns about the Necrobot's fortress's storm shield seriously, but the discussion was interrupted by a call on Tarn's personal communicator from Megatron himself. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 2: The Sun in Flight|The Sun in Flight}}

[[File:YourFierceTears-byebyekaon.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|Give me your...you know the drill.]]

Tarn agreed to a meeting with Megatron alone, whereupon his former leader agreed to surrender in exchange for the rest of the Autobots being allowed to go free. Saddened and disgusted to truly see with his own eyes how far his idol had fallen, Tarn beat him to within an inch of his life, and was just about to deliver the killing shot when [[Overlord (Masterforce)|Overlord]] suddenly appeared, insisting that it was his right to end Megatron's life. Both refused to stand down, resulting in a bickering battle between the two that gave Megatron the chance to escape. Realizing their folly, Tarn and Overlord agreed to a truce, though Overlord continued to needle Tarn all the way back to the ''Peaceful Tyranny''. The final straw came when a distraught Kaon arrived with the news that the Autobots had kidnapped the D.J.D.'s [[Dominus Ambus|pet sparkeater]]; determined to cut out of both the hearts of himself and his men the compassion that he saw as Megatron's downfall, Tarn slew Kaon on the spot, tearing his head from his shoulders. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 3: Your Fierce Tears|Your Fierce Tears}}

At sundown, Tarn led the Decepticons in their attack, {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 4: At Close of Day|At Close of Day}} playing "The Empyrean Suite" across the battlefield as battle commenced. He initially hung back with Deathsaurus, but joined the fight in earnest after a temporary power-up acquired by the Autobots wore off, ripping [[Ravage (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Ravage]] clean in half. Unfortunately, that turned out to be just the thing to bring Megatron out onto the battlefield, cutting swathes through the Decepticon troops. Tarn surreptitiously ordered the D.J.D. to retreat, whilst demanding Deathsaurus's troops enact a suicidal assault on Megatron. When the ex-Decepticon's new fusion cannon was destroyed, he unexpectedly sunk to his knees in panicked defeat, and Tarn and Overlord moved to strike the final blow together. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 5: Rage, Rage|Rage, Rage}}

[[File:mtmte55 goodbye tarn.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.4|You will die alone. Unmourned. And unloved.]]
Their shots, however, were reflected by the sudden activation of a forcefield by Megatron. Whilst Overlord and Deathsaurus abandoned the planet, unwilling to waste their time and troops respectively on Megatron, Tarn and the other remaining members of the D.J.D. assaulted the forcefield until they could finally force their way in. Things went very badly wrong after that, as soon as the D.J.D. were all inside Megatron rose to his feet and chided Tarn, ripping the D.J.D. leader's fusion cannon off in disgust. With dawning horror the D.J.D. realised everything was all according to Megatron's plan–after years of study, he had finally managed to interlink his systems with a black hole to harvest [[antimatter]], and he had no intention of letting any of them leave alive. With his former enforcers now trapped, Megatron tore through them with tendrils of antimatter, speaking their true names at the moments of their deaths. Tarn was saved for last, his mask ripped off as Megatron called him by his previous name: "Glitch". Tarn first begged for Megatron to be "reasonable", then tried fake bravado, just as many of his own victims had done... and with as little success.

Completing his denouncement of his former enforcer, Megatron informed Damus that "Everything you did was for nothing" and obliterated him with antimatter. {{storylink|The Dying of the Light Part 6: Do Not Go Gentle|Do Not Go Gentle}}

Much later, when Nickel was on the verge of being killed by [[Scorponok (G1)/2005 IDW continuity|Scorponok]], she used Tarn's voicemail message to paralyze the ex-Decepticon, allowing her and the [[Scavenger (group)|Scavengers]] to escape. {{storylink|Kill All 'Cons}}
{{-}}

====The Functionist Universe====
[[File:This Machine Kills Fascists-Functionist Glitch.jpg|thumb|"There must always be a Megatron."]]
Glitch was amongst a group of [[Anti-Vocationist League]] members who attended a secret meeting beneath [[Nova Point]]. There, he listened to the universally-displaced Megatron speak about how to fight the [[Functionist Council]] for the goal of "peace through empathy". {{storylink|Dissolution Part 6: This Machine Kills Fascists|This Machine Kills Fascists}}

===''Kre-O'' online manga===
[[File:KreO-webcomic-9-Tarn.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.6]]
Tarn was part of [[Bludgeon (Kre-O)|Bludgeon]]'s forces when they uncovered the [[Red Bucket]]. {{storylink|Treasure Competition! Defeat with Block Power!}}

{{-}}

===''TransTech''===
An [[Lowtech|Offworlder]] in [[Axiom Nexus]], Tarn was a judge of ''[[Cybertron's Got Talent]]'' in the wake of [[Ego (TransTech)|Ego]]'s death. Tarn enjoyed calling out sub-par transformations as part of his judging. {{storylink|Andromeda - Axiom Nexus News Reporter|Andromeda - Axiom Nexus News, 2015/05/14}}

===An Arcee Sort of Day===
After the Great War ended, Damus joined a [[Unicron/Generation 1|Unicron]] cult, warning a passing [[Arcee (G1)|Arcee]] that the world was ending. {{storylink|An Arcee Sort of Day}}

===2019 IDW continuity===
Damus was enjoying a drug den when [[Nightbeat (G1)|Nightbeat]] kicked down the door and requested both calm and [[Sixshot (G1)|Sixshot]]'s squad from the [[War of the Threefold Spark]]. {{storylink|The Change In Your Nature Part One}}
{{-}}

==Games==
===''Transformers Legends''===
Tarn and the rest of the DJD pursued Black Shadow for taking bribes from the Autobots. The DJD found their target hiding on planet Clemency, and dispatched them with extreme prejudice as Tarn set course for their next assignment. {{storylink|Rules of Disengagement (Legends)|Rules of Disengagement}}
{{-}}

==Merchandise==
===Flame Toys===
[[File:FlameToysTarn.jpg|upright=1.66|thumb|"You'll suffer till the end of time, enduring tortures, most of which rhyme, trapped forever here in Robot Hell!"]]
*'''Tarn''' (August [[2018]])
**''Accessories'': mask, 2 fusion cannons, 2 back cannons, clean mask (exclusive), 2 vocal effector cannons (exclusive)

:Produced by [[Flame Toys]] as part of their ''Kuro Kara Kuri'' line, Tarn is a detailed non-transforming action figure featuring [[die-cast]] parts and LEDs in his head, chest, and legs. He comes with two fusion cannons that can be mounted on his arm or combined into one giant handheld weapon, two guns that attach to his back and a removable mask. If purchased via D4toys.com, SEN-TI-DEN Hong Kong, or events attended by Flame Toys, he also includes an alternate mask without scars and two speakers that can replace the back guns.

*'''Tarn (Power Burst ver.)''' ([[July 26]], [[2019]])
:Debuted by Flame Toys at ACGHK 2019, "Tarn (Power Burst ver.)" is a chrome-plated redeco of the above figure, limited to 300 pieces: 200 at ACGHK 2019 and 100 at D4toys.com.
{{-}}

==Notes==
[[File:Tarn BlackShadow RulesofDisengagement.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|left|"What are you gonna do, talk me to death?" "Yup"]]
[[File: Tfhero_tarn_lookalike.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|I don't really see it, to be honest.]]
*[[Alex Milne]] said in a Facebook interview that his ideal voice for Tarn is [[Keith David]].<ref>[https://www.facebook.com/notes/transformers/transformers-more-than-meets-the-eye-vol-2-alex-milne-interview/395646703838863 Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye vol. 2 Alex Milne interview]</ref>
*Like all non-toy robot [[Kreon]]s in the ''Kre-O'' manga, Kreon Tarn is made from existing ''Kre-O'' parts, but extensively "painted". He uses the [[Ratchet (Kre-O)|Ratchet]] helmet, the [[Megatron (Kre-O)|Megatron]] arm-cannon, and some kind of setup to wear the Bludgeon treads on his back.
*For some time, the popular speculation among the readership of ''More than Meets the Eye'' was that Tarn had originally been [[Roller (IDW)|Roller]]. [[Elegant Chaos Part 1: All Our Parlous Yesterdays#Other trivia|''More than Meets the Eye'' #36]] dropped a number of clues to further this theory before the actual revelation in [[The Dying of the Light Part 6: Do Not Go Gentle|issue #55]], which revealed these to be nothing more than red herrings. James Roberts cheekily had Roller reveal himself as still alive and intact on the page right after Velocity asked who Tarn really was and just before the actual unmasking.
*Damus's city of origin was never revealed in fiction, but was stated by [[James Roberts]] to be... Tarn.<ref>James Roberts Q&A at TFNation 2017</ref>
*Tarn's design bears a fairly strong resemblance to a piece of concept artwork for ''Transformers: Hero'', or what would eventually be developed into ''[[Transformers Animated (franchise)|Transformers Animated]]''. Alex Milne says he's never seen it before,<ref>[https://twitter.com/markerguru/status/1204197465248931840 Twitter conversation with Alex Milne on 9 December, 2019]</ref> which shouldn't come as much of a surprise; in a franchise that's this big, and that's been around this long, some ideas are good enough to be had twice.
*Not only does he wear the Decepticon insignia on his face, his entire torso appears designed to evoke it too.
*Damus's name is derived from {{w|Nostradamus}}, a historical figure tied to prophecy.<ref>[https://twitter.com/jroberts332/status/1058379500898140161 Twitter conversation with James Roberts on 2 November, 2018]</ref>
*The [[Perfect Decepticon]]s from ''[[Transformers: Cyberverse (cartoon)|Transformers: Cyberverse]]'' are designed to resemble Tarn.
*Tarn was mentioned as a phase sixer by James Roberts on twitter, however it is unsure if he means ununtrinium enhanced warrior or just the title.

===Foreign names===
*''Japanese:'' '''Tarn''' (ターン ''Tān'')

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:Anti-Vocationist League]]
[[Category:Decepticon leaders]]
[[Category:IDW (2005) Decepticons]]
[[Category:IDW (2019) Transformers]]
[[Category:Kre-O Decepticons]]
[[Category:Kreons]]
[[Category:Point One Percenters]]
[[Category:TransTech Decepticons]]