Trans-spacial cylinder

Trans-spacial cylinders are a Cybertronian technology used to achieve trans-spacial porting. Only prototypes exist, as the technology turned out to be prone to catastrophic malfunctions and production was halted. Despite this, they're still able to be activated and used, though who knows where you'll turn up.

Fiction

Classified novels

Nineteen thousand years ago, during the war against The Fallen, a munitions stronghold was established on Earth. In the present day, the stronghold was located under Hawthorne Army Depot and still contained many pieces of ancient and powerful technology, including a long cylindrical pillar of dark metal covered in Autobot symbols. It was the pillar that was of particular interest to Reverb, who was sent there by Megatron to steal it, but Gears was on a mission to stop him. Gears got to the stronghold first, but Reverb followed him after conning Ratchet into bringing him there.

Inside, Reverb damaged Gears and loaded up with ancient technology, including the pillar. Reverb fought off Ratchet, Bumblebee, and the human soldiers that were stationed there. In the process, Reverb activated the pillar and threw it at the human soldiers. It stuck in the desert floor and caused five soldiers, including Duane Bowman, to disappear in a flash. After Reverb was outsmarted by Kevin Bowman, Optimus Prime inspected the cylinder. He recognized the technology and concluded that it had transported the soldiers somewhere. Switching Gears

The cylinder was studied by Chief Lindsay at the NEST Rapid Response Base in Nevada, and he was able to establish that it used the same teleporting technology as Jetfire. When a second Cybertronian stronghold was located in Antler Peak, Kevin and Douglas Porter went there to see if it was where Duane and the other soldiers had been transported. They didn't find the soldiers, but they did find a second trans-spacial cylinder, and Kevin was able to coax some more information about it from the AI that guarded the stronghold. Douglas attempted to have a Hyperdynamix truck take the cylinder away, but NEST forces arrived in a helicopter first. Unfortunately the power levels on the cylinder were so low, Lindsay suspected it would be able to manage one trip only, assuming they could find coordinates to use. Battle Mountain The NEST scientists continued to study the Battle Mountain cylinder, until an incident in which they accidentally powered it up. With it likely to trigger in roughly four days, the cylinder was placed in a convoy to be stored at Yucca Mountain, but the convoy was attacked mid-journey by Reverb. He failed to secure the device, and Lindsay was able to use coordinates supplied by Doug Porter to set the cylinder's destination point. It duly transported Kevin and the Reusable Launch Vehicle he was piloting to Blue Planet, where Duane and his team had just uncovered a third cylinder. Kevin was able to configure that cylinder to take the entire squad back to Earth, where Doug Porter shut down the link. The Battle Mountain cylinder subsequently completed its journey to the vault for observation. Satellite of Doom

TransTech

An incident involving trans-spatial cylinders and Uniend 610.23 Zeta caused Galactic Express's stock to plummet. Andromeda - Axiom Nexus News, 2015/05/09