Apex Armor (Thirteen)

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This article is about the legendary armor of the Thirteen. For the armor from Generation 1, see Apex Armor (G1){{#switch:{{#sub:Apex Armor (G1)|-1}} != .= ?= .

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Solus Prime was able to build this in a CAVE! With a box of SCRAPS!

The Apex Armor is one of the relics of the Thirteen (or an armor of Decepticon design; it depends on who you ask). While normally compacted in a disk, when placed over a Transformer's chest it will expand into a huge set of armor impervious to any attack, as well as enhance the wearer's strength. Though built for Cybertronians, the artifact can also be used by humans, forming a proportionally smaller but no less invincible set of armor.

Fiction

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Exiles

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The Apex Armor was created by Solus Prime. Long after, while waiting for the Autobots on Cybertron, Alpha Trion had a few daydreams about Optimus Prime returning with the relic, as well as the AllSpark and other lost and legendary treasures. Exiles

Prime cartoon

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The Apex Armor was stored in the Iacon Vaults until late in the war when Megatron's forces stormed Iacon. Along with the other relics, it was ejected into space and eventually found its way to Earth, where it ended up in the Antarctic. Its location was decrypted by the Nemesis when it temporarily gained sentience. Flying Mind Megatron dispatched Dreadwing to obtain it while Optimus went there personally. At the same time, a curious Starscream also went to Antarctica to investigate the Decepticon activity. Upon reaching the relic's coordinates, it was discovered that a human research team had found it first and took it back to their base. Eventually, the three factions discovered the relic. While Optimus Prime and Dreadwing were fighting each other over it, Starscream decided to claim it for himself. He pulled it from the ice it was encased in and identified it as armor of Decepticon design. When he placed the roughly disc shaped object to his chest, it expanded over him into a full body armor suit that towered over both Optimus and Dreadwing. It proved to be a very powerful weapon, allowing him to survive any attack Optimus Prime and Dreadwing threw at him. It was impervious to Dreadwing's sword and energy blasts only served to stagger him. He had heightened strength, but the armor did not have any weapons, nor did it restore his ability to transform. When Optimus and Dreadwing used explosives to send Starscream through the icy ground into the sea below, the armor allowed Starscream to survive and walk along the ocean floor. Triangulation Megatron was displeased with Dreadwing's failure to obtain the armor. Triage

Starscream took the Apex Armor with him when he went to retrieve some Red Energon. During a showdown in a dock, it enabled him to throw Prime around and nearly upend a crane. Unfortunately then Smokescreen showed up with a phase shifter and kicked Starscream right out of the armor. The Apex Armor was subsequently taken back to the Autobot Base. New Recruit Smokescreen offered it to Bulkhead who was still recovering from his injuries, but the Wrecker was offended by the very idea he'd need a crutch, and swatted the armor out of his hand. The Human Factor

"Aw, slag. You never warned us they WORE ARMOR, STARSCREAM!"

Arcee used the armor when the Autobots returned to Cybertron to try to recapture the Omega Keys, and was able to knock the Vehicons around with it. Regeneration After the Decepticons took the kids hostage, Arcee was forced to take off the Apex Armor and throw it to the ground. Darkest Hour Knock Out and a team of Decepticons later found it intact in the devastated area around the Omega Lock. Darkmount, NV

After his initial attempts to train Predaking proved a hazard to continued existence, Starscream equipped the Apex Armor to shield himself from its outbursts. Unfortunately for him, the armor did nothing to stop Predaking from tossing him around like a chew toy. Starscream brought the armor along when he was ordered to use Predaking to retrieve a Predacon bone fragment. He took it off once he was certain Predaking was occupied, allowing Miko Nakadai to take possession of it when she tried to get past him into Ultra Magnus' ship. Predaking overpowered the Armor-clad Miko, but failed to do any actual damage to the armor itself. When Predaking was ordered away by Megatron, Miko swiftly put the armor to good use by pummeling Starscream and his attendant Vehicons. Unable to divest her of the armor and faced with incoming Autobot backup, Starscream was forced to leave it with the Autobots. Chain of Command

Miko once again donned the armor to aid Jack in securing the bridge of the Nemesis. She made short work of the Vehicon guards, then goaded Soundwave into using a GroundBridge so Raf could open a second one behind him, thus trapping him in the shadowzone. She stood guard while Jack figured out how to pilot the ship, then later decked Knock Out when he tried to switch sides. Deadlock

Prime toy bios

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Courtesy of the Predacons, the Apex Hunter Armor was armed and upgraded with ancient weaponry. Breakdown was then given the opportunity to use the armor and wreak havoc on his enemies. Apex Hunter Armor with Breakdown

Unite Warriors/Legends

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After being reunited with his partner Knock Out in his native universe after adventures in the G1 World, Breakdown was shown the schematics for the Apex Hunter Armor. Epiloge

Age of the Primes marketing material

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Micronus Prime tooled around on a teeny one-wheeled motorcycle that revealed itself as the vehicle mode of the Apex Armor in battle. Age of the Primes Micronus Prime bio

Toys

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Prime

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After taking one too many insults about his stature, Breakdown decided to imitate that comic book he was reading, and expose himself to gamma radiation, intent on becoming a powerful, hulking beast.

It didn't work, so he stole a suit of armor instead.
  • Apex Hunter Armor with Breakdown (Cyberverse Vehicle, 2013)
    • Series/Number: 3 / 002
    • Accessories: Large missile-firing blaster, four missiles, small blaster
    • Known designers: Joe Kyde (Hasbro){{#if: |, {{{2}}}}}
    Part of the first wave of Prime: Beast Hunters Series 3 Cyberverse Vehicle playsets, the "Apex Hunter Armor" is a redeco and extensive retool of the Bumblebee Battle Suit, and is a large, vaguely humanoid combat suit with articulation at the hips, elbows, and shoulders (although the shoulders only rotate laterally, not forward and backward, making their use rather limited). The cockpit in the torso can hold a single Cyberverse figure, and the armor features "crusher claws" for hands. The claws are spring-loaded to remain open, and can snap shut when a protruding 5 mm peg-hole on top of either forearm is pulled back.
    The armor has 5 mm peg-holes near the claw joints for holding the included main weapon, a massive four-barreled blaster that fires its four missiles in quick succession via pressure-launch. The armor is also festooned with numerous C joint bars, as well as both 3 mm and 5 mm holes, for mounting all sorts of additional weaponry.
    The Apex Hunter Armor transforms into a rolling battle station, not dissimilar to the one Optimus Maximus becomes (though the Apex Armor's transformation is more involved). In this mode, two additional (non-firing) cannon barrels rotate up and over the armor's shoulders, and a platform is flipped up from behind the armor to provide a place for two additional Cyberverse figures to stand and hold onto handlebars mounted on the armor's back. The transformation also allows the C joint clips and bars on the outer sides of the armor's split treads/legs to be used for connecting to other Cyberverse playsets, while revealing another 5 mm hole that was previously located inside the armor's cockpit; the missile-firing blaster can be mounted in this hole and "manned" by a Cyberverse figure holding the handlebars on the back of the gun.
    For this retool, the "Energon Booster", its wire, as well as all of its associated electronics, have been removed, and while the battery compartment at the back can still be opened, there are neither batteries, metal plates, nor springs present. Interestingly, the plastic ridges on the back of the armor, meant to provide a place to coil the now-nonexistent booster's wire, are still present, and the opaque-plastic back panel at the top of the armor is still compatible with the booster accessory, with the newly-molded panel even featuring a sculpted crosshair at the other end of its booster plug.
    In order for the armor to fit in its packaging, it is minimally mis-transformed, with the front treads that make up part of its feet not being flipped out and tabbed into slots on the rear treads. Unusually, the front treads have even been sculpted with dents to accommodate the rear treads while in this mis-transformed position.
    Included with the Apex Hunter Armor is a redeco of the Legion Class Breakdown toy, and a normal purple version of his blaster. The Breakdown mold was also redecoed into Series 2 Cyberverse Fallback and The Last Knight Berserker.

    Age of the Primes

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    William, here is the technology. I've asked you to simply make it smaller.
    • The Thirteen Micronus Prime (Deluxe Class, 2025)
    Part of the third wave of Age of the Primes Deluxe Class figures, Micronus Prime includes a one-wheeled vehicle which transforms into an exo-suit based on the Apex Armor (with some additional Pretender influence),<ref name ="Markpost">Design notes on Age of the Primes Micronus Prime from Hasbro designer Mark Maher on Instagram</ref> into which Micronus can fit in disc mode. Micronus's Chimera Stone accessory can also peg into the chest of the exo-suit accessory to reproduce the Apex Armor's characteristic circular core. The arms/exhausts can be bent down to use as kickstands in unicycle mode.
    The armor can additionally disassemble into component parts that can be wielded as weapons by larger figures, in the style of the Siege Weaponizers and their various successor lines. The instructions show the arms being used as gun attachments, the legs/wheel as an enormously thick shield, and the remaining torso chunk as a propeller backpack.

    Notes

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    • The origins of the Apex Armor are a bit iffy; when first introduced into the Aligned continuity, in the 2011 novel Transformers: Exiles, it was stated to have been created by Solus Prime, but when it showed up in Transformers: Prime the next year, Starscream identified it as being "of Decepticon origin." Then, in 2013, The Covenant of Primus told the story of how Solus Prime once created a collapsible suit of invincible armour at the request of Liege Maximo... but as much as this sounds like the Apex Armor, the book never calls it that, and never draws a connection between the two, leaving it unclear if they were intended to be the same thing.
      • The Solus-created armor mentioned in the Covenant was originally intended to play a much larger role in the story of the Thirteen Primes. As detailed in the Binder of Revelation, after Liege Maximo manipulated Megatronus into killing Solus, the guilt-wracked Megatronus took the armor (here named "the Sinisternal") for himself, and donned it with the intent of using it to take revenge on Maximo. But Megatronus was unaware that Solus had built a failsafe into the armour, to prevent it from being used without her consent; when he put the armor on, a contained explosion with the force of a miniature supernova detonated within it. Megatronus survived, barely, but the blast fused him and the armor together, condemning him to burn within it for all time, turning him into the flaming figure of "The Fallen." This whole idea was dropped from the official, canon version of the story featured in the Covenant, but as noted above, it remains unclear if the concept of a Solus-created suit of armor (now robbed of narrative purpose thanks to this change in the story) was repurposed to become the Apex Armour mentioned in Exiles and seen in Prime.
    • Designer Mark Maher describes the Age of the Primes iteration of the Apex Armor as capable of intermingling with Micronus Prime's Chimera Stone artifact to operate independently, acting as a sort of distant ancestor to Pretender shell technology.<ref name = "Markpost"/>

    Foreign names

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    • Japanese: Apex Armor (エイペックスアーマー Eipekkusu Āmā)

    References

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