Editing Transformers: Exodus

{{Comicstory
|seriesissue=''[[Transformers: War for Cybertron|War for Cybertron]]''
|prev=
|next=Transformers: War for Cybertron
|title=''Transformers: Exodus: The Official History of the War for Cybertron''
|image=TransformersExodusCover.jpg
|caption=Apparently the war for Cybertron is all [[Sideways (RID)|Sideways]]' fault. Fitting!
|publisher=[[Del Rey Books]]
|price=$27.00 USD<br>$32.00 CAD
|date=[[June 22]], [[2010]]
|writer=[[Alex Irvine|Alexander C. Irvine]]
|continuity=Unknown (see Notes)
|ISBN=ISBN 034551985X<br>ISBN 978-0345519856
|pagecount=288
}}

'''The relationship between Orion Pax and Megatron before the war is explored.  Also, enjoy meeting one of the original 13 Transformers.'''

==Synopsis==

[[Cybertron]]'s once-mighty civilization is in a period of stasis and decadence.  The bygone ages of space exploration and building relations with other forms of life are all but forgotten, the [[space bridge]]s having all gone offline through sabotage or millennia of neglect.  The architecture of ancient cities such as [[Iacon (city-state)|Iacon]] display a boldness and dynamism absent from modern structures and, indeed, from most of Cybertronian life.  As soon as every Cybertronian emerges from the [[Well of All Sparks]] (in which resides the [[AllSpark (Prime)|AllSpark]] itself, the device that physically creates them) they are assigned to a [[caste system|caste]] and guild from which they may never deviate throughout their lifetimes--and even this process has lost its grandeur over the eons, with the newly-sparked no longer expected to make a death-defying run through the primordial monsters' den of [[Underworld]].  There is no opportunity for change or personal growth.  Some are born to lead, others are civil servants, and those of the lowest castes--manual laborers in the underground mines and factories--don't even have names.  

Understanding that the social hierarchy instills tensions that must be relieved somehow, the [[High Council]] turns a blind eye to the proliferation of underground [[Gladiatorial combat|gladiatorial combat]].  Over these brutal deathmatches, the laborer caste rallies around a charismatic and seemingly unstoppable iconic figure who--acting beyond his natural station--has taken a name, and not just any name, but that of one of the [[Thirteen original Transformers|original 13 Transformers]], the powerful and sinister [[The Fallen|Megatronus]].  In the cheers of his adoring fans, this name gets shortened to [[Megatron (Prime)|Megatron]], and the new form sticks.  

[[Optimus Prime (Prime)|Orion Pax]], a data clerk who feels dissatisfied with the caste system, is assigned to eavesdrop on Megatron's political speeches and file them appropriately for the High Council's knowledge.  Megatron's stated goals of a free Cybertron, with each individual determining his own path in life, is highly appealing to Orion.  Confused, Orion turns to guidance to his supervisor and mentor, [[Alpha Trion (Prime)|Alpha Trion]]...who, unbeknownst to Orion and everyone else still alive, is the last surviving member of the original 13 Transformers.  As the scribe of past, present, and future, Alpha Trion knows that some great destiny awaits both Megatron and Orion Pax, but does not know what it is.  Speaking cryptically to his younger colleague, Alpha Trion encourages Orion Pax to monitor this new upstart. 

Orion makes contact with Megatron's fledgling organization, in the process enjoying his little tastes of breaking rules and acting beyond the normal limits of his station.  The two find broad agreement in the need for a new form of Cybertronian government, though Megatron favors confrontation and revolution whereas Orion hopes to inspire the masses to change the system from within.  The two also engage in nonstop verbal sparring and (would-be) witty repartee.  Megatron's team includes the devious spymaster [[Soundwave (Prime)|Soundwave]] and his army of [[Minicon]]s, and the amoral mad scientist [[Shockwave (Prime)|Shockwave]].  

When Orion vocally defends Megatron in a dispute on the Cybertronian datanet, he inadvertently "outs" himself as being part of the organization and is soon viewed as just as much a revolutionary.  As their movement gains power, it also grows more violent:  Saboteurs professing allegiance to Megatron commit multiple bombings across the planet, including destroying the [[Six Lasers Over Cybertron]] amusement park.  Megatron repeatedly (and seemingly quite earnestly) swears not to know who committed these crimes and disavows them.  But he cannot hide his own involvement in the kidnapping of [[Sentinel Zeta Prime|Sentinel Prime]]--carried out with cooperation from Sentinel's own [[Seeker]] bodyguards.  

Chief among these bodyguards is [[Starscream (Prime)|Starscream]], who is disgusted by Sentinel's show of cowardice during the kidnapping but still resents the upending of his past secure position due to Megatron's actions.  He flirts with joining Megatron's forces, but also makes sure to dispatch all his loyal Seekers to [[Trypticon (Prime)|Trypticon Station]]--a floating strategic asset bearing a powerful secret that he understands and that Megatron, for the moment, does not.    

In the hopes of preventing all-out war, Alpha Trion helps Orion and Megatron secure an audience before the High Council in order to plead their case.  The Council members are hostile from the start to any notion of change and view Megatron as nothing but a criminal. For his part, Megatron continues to disown most (but not all) of the violence being committed in his name but continues to call for the total removal of the caste system, including the Council itself.  His words feed on the resentment of the underclasses in his audience, and his followers begin to chant the name "[[Decepticon]]", after a violent cult from the misty reaches of Cybertronian history.  When it is Orion's turn to speak, by contrast, he makes a more noble appeal to the broader spectrum of society.  He points out that earlier generations of Cybertronians would never have been able to repel the ancient invasion of the [[Quintesson]]s if they had been constrained by such a caste system.  He proclaims their fuller potential as a race if each individual were to be acknowledged as an autonomous robot--and he coins the term "[[Autobot]]" as an expression of that ideal.  High Council member [[Halogen]] at last speaks, and he grants that the two radicals might have a point, and that Cybertronian society might have become too static and stratified for its own good.  Recognizing the depth of the crisis that their world faces, Halogen asserts that what they need is new visionary leadership to guide a social rebirth--and on that note, the Council proclaims Orion Pax to now be Optimus Prime, the new leader of all Cybertron, with his first mission being the retrieval of the near-mystical [[Matrix of Leadership]].  

Megatron is livid at the elevation of his former colleague, believing it to have been a set-up from Orion all along.  He kills Halogen at once, but as both sides marshal for war, Optimus is at least able to convince Megatron--in perhaps a final gesture of respect for civilization--not to commit further violence within the Council halls.  Instead, the two sides retreat...with High Council members [[Contrail]] and [[Ratbat (Prime)|Ratbat]] aligning with Megatron's Decepticons.  

The war that follows is brutal and largely one-sided.  The Autobots retain control of Iacon, as well as [[Kalis]] and the key asset of its underground fusion reactor that powers their war effort; the Decepticons take over practically the rest of the planet.  Autobot special teams such as the [[Wreckers]] (led by the mighty, hammer-bearing warrior [[Ultra Magnus (Prime)|Ultra Magnus]]) manage to hold their own against hulking Decepticon combiners such as [[Constructicons (Prime)|Devastator]].  Some battle sites, such as [[Praxus]], are so thoroughly devastated that the dead can never be counted and no one will ever know who won.  Out of desperation, the Autobots launch the AllSpark into space to keep Megatron from gaining control of the source of Transformer life.  It is in that battle that [[Bumblebee (Prime)|Bumblebee]] has his vocal circuits painfully destroyed.    

Seeking a new advantage, Megatron orders Starscream to give him access to the secret of Trypticon Station:  its stockpile of [[Dark Energon]], the power-enhancing evil essence of [[Unicron]] himself.  Megatron's "darkened" Decepticons now have a combat edge necessary to overwhelm the struggling Autobots.  To accelerate the process, Megatron seeks control of the [[Plasma Energy Chamber (Prime)|Plasma Energy Chamber]], which would allow him to use his Dark Energon supplies to turn the energon core of Cybertron into an unlimited font of the foul substance--both permanently empowering his own forces while starving the Autobots to death.  But in order to activate the Plasma Energy Chamber, he needs to acquire the [[Key of Justice]] and the [[Key of Power]].  He eventually acquires both--one of them was stored inside Sentinel Prime's chest, and Megatron resolved that problem by defeating the former leader in combat and hacking him apart.  

Before Megatron can fully activate the Plasma Energy Chamber, the Autobots use their last known advantage by reactivating Cybertron's long-disused ultimate guardian, [[Omega Supreme (Prime)|Omega Supreme]].  Just by transforming from city mode to rocket ship mode, Omega nearly crushes Megatron and the Decepticons to death, and after a successful takeoff, it almost seems like he would be able to fly the Plasma Energy Chamber to safety.  But Starscream and his Seekers manage to shoot down the colossal craft, and at the crater of its impact, neither the Autobots nor even Omega Supreme's robot mode can prove to be a match with a Dark Energon-empowered Megatron.  Omega Supreme is defeated, and Megatron acquires the Plasma Energy Chamber.  Ratchet manages to save Omega's life--barely--but nothing can stop Megatron from tainting the core of Cybertron.  

Optimus and the Autobots (including [[Jetfire (Prime)|Jetfire]] and Bumblebee) struggle their way to the core, avoiding infection by Dark Energon along the way.  Once at the core, Bumblebee manages to extract the Plasma Energy Chamber and Optimus receives a mental communication from the core itself.  Now that the source of Dark Energon contamination has been removed, the core will eventually be able to heal itself.... but that may take centuries, and during that time, the core will not be able to generate enough energon to sustain the full Cybertronian population.  Most Cybertronians will either have to abandon the planet until it heals, or risk starvation.  To show him not to lose hope, the core bestows upon Optimus Prime the Matrix of Leadership.  

Seeing that the planet will soon be uninhabitable, Optimus orders a mass evacuation of the Autobot fleet--but most of the ships are shot down by Trypticon Station.  One Autobot vessel, the ''[[Eight Track]]'', is able to link up to Trypticon Station and force it to crash...whereupon the station transforms into a bipedal reptilian monster and goes on a rampage.  

Alpha Trion grows ever more despairing for the planet he has tended for unimaginable millennia, and he puts into place a radical plan: the construction of the largest spaceship in Cybertronian history, the ''[[Ark (Prime)|Ark]]'', on which most of the Autobots may escape.  Ultra Magnus, his Wreckers, and a rebuilt Omega Supreme volunteer to stay behind and see to what little territory the Autobots still hold.  Despite Optimus's strong wishes, Alpha Trion refuses to leave Cybertron and declares the time has come for his old friend truly to make his own command decisions without the advice from a bygone era.  

As most of the Autobots flee the planet aboard the ''Ark'', Megatron commands Trypticon to transform into a ''[[Nemesis (Prime)|Nemesis]]''-class supercruiser in which he and most of the Decepticons will give pursuit.  Megatron leaves Shockwave behind as dictator of the dying planet, with orders that he is to have exterminated all remaining Autobots by the time Megatron returns.  With ''Nemesis'' in hot pursuit, the Ark makes for the only possible avenue of survival: the last intact spacebridge, for which there is no guarantee the artifact will even function, as none alive know how to use it.  But as the two giant spaceships get within range of the spacebridge, it does indeed activate and teleport them....''somewhere''.  

Aboard the Ark, in a strange and uncharted sea of stars and with no Decepticons in sight, [[Prowl (Prime)|Prowl]] informs Optimus Prime that the has picked up the energy signature of the AllSpark.  And so the search begins....

==Featured Characters==
{{stub}}
{{featuredcharacters
|c1=
*[[Optimus Prime (Prime)|Orion Pax/Optimus Prime]]
*[[Jazz (Prime)|Jazz]]
*[[Omega Supreme (Prime)|Omega Supreme]]
*[[Sentinel Zeta Prime|Sentinel Prime]]
*[[Sideswipe (Prime)|Sideswipe]]
*[[Prowl (Prime)|Prowl]]
*[[Ironhide (Prime)|Ironhide]]
*[[Ratchet (Prime)|Ratchet]]
*[[Defensor (Prime)|Defensor]]
*[[Bumblebee (Prime)|Bumblebee]]
*[[Jetfire (Prime)|Jetfire]]
*[[Cliffjumper (Prime)|Cliffjumper]]
*[[Ultra Magnus (Prime)|Ultra Magnus]]
|c2=
*[[Megatron (Prime)|Megatron]]
*[[Shockwave (Prime)|Shockwave]]
*[[Soundwave (Prime)|Soundwave]]
*[[Rumble (Prime)|Rumble]]
*[[Ravage (Prime)|Ravage]]
*[[Laserbeak (Prime)|Laserbeak]]
*[[Starscream (Prime)|Starscream]]
*[[Skywarp (Prime)|Skywarp]]
*[[Thundercracker (Prime)|Thundercracker]]
*[[Frenzy (Prime)|Frenzy]]
*[[Ratbat (Prime)|Ratbat]]
*[[Contrail]]
*[[Devastator (Prime)|Devastator]]
*[[Bruticus Maximus (Prime)|Bruticus Maximus]]
*[[Onslaught (Prime)|Onslaught]] 
*[[Barricade (Prime)|Barricade]]
*[[Lugnut (Prime)|Lugnut]]
*[[Blackout (Prime)|Blackout]]
*[[Hotlink]]
*[[Bitstream]]
*[[Nacelle]]
*[[Catalycon]]
*[[Drixco]]
|h3=Other|c3=
*[[Alpha Trion (Prime)|Alpha Trion]]
*[[Armorhide (Prime)|Armorhide]]
*[[Gauntlet]]
*[[Hydrau]]
*[[Drivetrain]]
*[[Sigil]]
*[[Halogen]]
*[[Bumper (Prime)|Bumper]]
*[[Fastback (Prime)|Fastback]]
|nonumbering=true
}}

== Errors ==

*At the end of Chapter Six Orion Pax has traveled to Kaon to meet Megatron. At the start of the next chapter when the terrorist bombs go off, he is specifically described as being back in Iacon and speaking to Megatron remotely over a videolink:

:''"On the videolink, he watched as Megatron registered the events.'' [snip...] ''"You are in Iacon, correct?"''
:'' Orion Pax nodded.(pg. 46).''

:Then, three pages and only moments later he is suddenly "still" back with Megatron's troops in Kaon.

*Starscream's backstory is entirely contradictory:

: "Not even Starscream, who had spent much of his scientific career in the labs contained within these refracting walls..." (p. 78).

: "See what?" Starscream asked. Neither Starscream nor Megatron were scientists." (p. 158). 

*The number of Autobot Seekers is handled puzzlingly as well:

: "All of the Seekers loyal to the Autobots were out on patrol.... The sole exception, Jetfire, the sole Seeker to have defected to the Autobots..." (p.204).

* As with [[Starscream (Prime)|Starscream]], Trypticon seems to have two contradictory "origins" within ''Exodus'' itself. Early in the novel, [[Optimus Prime (Prime)|Orion Pax]] researches the station and discovers that it was secretly "recreated" from a simple space station into a full Transformer and was raised to sentience, given a living [[spark]] (pg. 82) when [[Dark Energon]] was hidden aboard by an ancient iteration of the [[High Council]] headed by Sentinel Prime. Later in the novel, the Decepticons seize the station, and Shockwave is credited with then transforming it from a simple station to a Transformer and using multiple captive sparks to bring it to life. 

*Early on, Bruticus Maximus and Onslaught are referred to as "Constructicons". The Constructicons here are a larger team than normal, but given that this description shortly follows a paragraph talking about definite, actual Constructicons and that the Combaticons' team name IS mentioned later, this seems a likely typo/error.

== Quotes ==

== Transformers References ==

*Practically everything.  

*But to be more specific.....

*Elements in ''Exodus'' have come from: ''[[Megatron Origin]]'', with Megs as a working class rebel, a corrupted Cybertron government, and the exposure and subsequent murder of Autobot spies [[Bumper (Prime)|Bumper]] and [[Fastback (Prime)|Fastback]]; ''[[The War Within]]'', with Optimus as a data clerk; ''State Games'' with Megatron as a warrior-gladiator who used the games as a way of inspiring the masses to follow him; [[Cybertron (cartoon)|the ''Cybertron'' cartoon]], with the long-gone era of Cybertronian colonisation and the Space Bridge network; ''[[The Rebirth]]'' and/or ''[[Beast Machines (cartoon)|Beast Machines]]'' for the [[Plasma energy|Plasma Energy Chamber]]; and the [[Transformers (2007)|2007 film]] and [[Defiance|its comics]], with the All Spark being sent into space and then everyone leaving the planet in big ships. The explicit caste system and Optimus and Megatron being old allies, however, is original. 

*On the last page, Optimus Prime notes that he and his Autobots "will wage battle to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons," a familiar refrain from various Transformers [[theme song]]s.  

*Megatron taunts Optimus Prime by saying "First Sentinel Prime, then Omega Supreme, and now you.  If only you all didn't die so easily, I would feel some sense of accomplishment in this."  This is a clear reference to a similar line spoken by [[Galvatron (G1)|Galvatron]] in [[The Transformers: The Movie|the animated movie]].  

*The [[The Fallen| Fallen]]'s original name is Megatronus Prime, and it is from him that Megatron himself took his name, shortening it after the gladiatorial crowds' chant. In most fictions, The Fallen's name was lost to history or changed. [[Jetfire (ROTF)| Jetfire]] states in ''[[Revenge of the Fallen (film)| Revenge of the Fallen]]'' that after one of the Primes (the one who would become the Fallen) betrayed them, "His name forevermore was The Fallen."

== Notes ==
*''Transformers: Exodus'' has been confirmed to tie-in with the ''[[Transformers: War for Cybertron]]'' video game and is partially adapted into [[IDW Publishing|IDW's]] ''War for Cybertron'' comic.<ref>[http://www.seibertron.com/transformers/news/transformers-war-for-cybertron-1-information-and-team-revealed/18661/ Transformers: War For Cybertron #1 Information and Team Revealed]</ref>
**Despite this intended tie-in, the stories of ''Exodus'' and ''War for Cybertron'' are largely incompatible, other than sharing a MacGuffin and some set pieces.  Even the name of the Prime before Optimus differs between the two (Sentinel versus [[Zeta Prime|Zeta]]), though [[Hasbro]] representatives at [[BotCon 2010]] attempted to [[retcon|reconcile]] this by suggesting the character's full name is "Sentinel Zeta Prime".
**Irvine said he had not played the game.<ref>[http://titanbooks.com/blog/alex-irvine-interview/ Titan Books interview]</ref>

*The synopsis boldly declares "everything that happened before Optimus and Megatron arrived on planet Earth—has always been a mystery", which is a bit of a fib: various Marvel UK strips since the 80s (especially 1986's ''[[State Games]]''), several cartoon episodes, and reams of Dreamwave and IDW comics have been set pre-Earth. 

*[[Bumblebee at Tyger Pax]] is an apocryphal follow up story by Alex Irvine about how Bumblebee lost his voice.

==References==
<references/>

==External links==
*[http://www.amazon.com/Transformers-Exodus-Official-History-Cybertron/dp/034551985X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269529226&sr=8-1&tag=transformers-20 Amazon.com page]
*[http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl/9780345519856.html Random House page]
*[http://www.hasbro.com/transformers/en_US/discover/movie-news/EXODUS.cfm Read the first 4 chapters at Hasbro's webpage]
[[Category:Novels]]
[[Category:Prime]]