Energon mutation

Energon is an incredibly potent fuel source and the lifeblood of the Transformer race, but few know of its greatest secret—enough energon, or even a sufficiently strong dose of its unique radiation can, under the correct conditions, instantly reformat ordinary objects into living Transformers, sometimes known as energon mutations or AllSpark mutations. Usually, it takes a great deal of energon to accomplish such a feat, and as a result this phenomenon requires exceptionally powerful energon sources, such as that contained within the life-giving AllSpark. However, sufficient quantities of mundane energon can, under the correct circumstances, also create life.

Transformers created in this method vary wildly. Some spring to life as fully cogent, sapient lifeforms no different from any other Transformer; others are little more than feral animals, and still others straddle the line between these two extremes. Perhaps owing to their unusual origins, many appear to lack sparks entirely. Perhaps due to their relative youth, many display a rebellious, independent streak by holding themselves apart from Autobots and Decepticons alike, and a surprisingly large number of mutations display a propensity for juvenile mischief.

“	When energon struck a mall nearby, we became more than meets the eye.	”
—Transformers: BotBots theme song

Fiction

Generation 1 continuity family

Beast Wars II comic

An Angolmois Capsule from Nemesis travelled back in time and fell on a planet in the 7th Cosmos. The "Divine Stone" evolved the native animals, gifting them with the ability to speak and even weapons such as missiles. While marooned on this remote world, Lio Convoy encountered a friendly woolly mammoth named Big, and a gang of prehistoric reptiles led by an unfriendly Giganotosaurus. When Big and his rivals came into conflict over a crashed Angolmois capsule, the energies unleashed by its destruction merged the Giganotosaurus and some of his followers together into the mighty Magmatron, and turned the rest of them into Predacon soldiers. Additionally, the power of Lio Convoy's Energon Matrix spontaneously transformed the mammoth into "Big Convoy". The Beast Wars "Neo" Begin!!!

Live-action film series

Movies

Transformers film

While experimenting on the AllSpark, Sector Seven's research team learned how to channel and harness its life-giving radiation and turn ordinary human machines into Cybertronians—unlike the fully-sentient Autobots and Decepticons, however, these creatures were violent, feral beings who mindlessly attacked anything in their immediate vicinity. Megatron planned to used the AllSpark to bring all of Earth's machinery to life, then turn them into a new army of Decepticon conquerors. According to the unreliable testimony of agent Seymour Simmons, Nokia-brand cell phones were particularly nasty compared to other electronic devices—indeed, one test subject manifested a tiny machine gun and attempted to break containment before Simmons terminated the creature with a powerful electric pulse.

Later, as Sam Witwicky fled from Decepticons in Mission City, he dropped the AllSpark cube and unleashed an uncontrolled energy pulse that brought three more machines to life: a soda machine, an Xbox 360, and a steering wheel. Transformers

Revenge of the Fallen film

After the AllSpark's destruction, a small fragment got mixed up in the tattered t-shirt Sam had been wearing that day. Two years later, Sam found the fragment, but—shocked by its energies—dropped it. It burned through the floor of his bedroom, landed in the kitchen, and discharged a burst of energy which brought many of the electronic devices in the Witwicky kitchen to life as Decepticons. These "Appliancebots" rampaged through the house and attempted to kill him and his family until Bumblebee destroyed all of the mutations. Revenge of the Fallen

Titan movie comics

AllSpark mutations contained solidified AllSpark energy in their chests that resemble small, red AllSpark cubes. After Megatron's defeat, the living machines animated by the AllSpark continued to run amok in Los Angeles until Starscream began killing them and taking their energy to resurrect his dead comrades as mindless zombies. Starscream's Militia

IDW movie comics

In 1913, Jetfire discovered the AllSpark excavation site in the Colorado River basin and came into conflict with the men who would go on to found Sector Seven. His touch activated the AllSpark and unleashed a surge of energon that brought four nearby machines to life: a shotgun, a radio, a car, and the crane holding the AllSpark. While Roy Thompson and Theodore Wells dispatched the radio and the gun, Herbert Hoover opened the water bypass from the nearby dam and destroyed the crane. Irreplaceable Only the car escaped, and laid low for twenty years until a pair of criminals named Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow used it during their infamous crime spree. When Sector Seven finally caught up with the rogue machine, Margaret Simmons destroyed it using an experimental electrical weapon. Together

A century later, while mopping up after the battle of Mission City, Ironhide, Captain Lennox, Technical Sergeant Epps and a few other soldiers tracked down and destroyed the remaining AllSpark mutations. Alliance #1 That same year, an AllSpark fragment brought a group of L.M.-1 drones to life, but they were quickly destroyed by Wreckage, who'd been revived with the same fragment of AllSpark energy. Alliance #2

Approximately one year later, Ravage broke into Guantanamo Bay and stole the remains of the Appliancebots. He got as far as Florida but was knocked offline by an explosion at Kingdom Petrochemicals. Tales of the Fallen #5 The mutations lay scattered around Ravage at the bottom of a tank until a team sent by the Initiative, Ravage's new enigmatic masters, arrived and began draining the residual AllSpark energy from them. Nefarious #1 Ravage was later revived by Buzzsaw, but the Appliancebots were left nonfunctional. Nefarious #2 Initiative leader Carter Newell used a neural conduit to beam this AllSpark energy across the country, and remotely animated a paper shredder, an air conditioning unit, a copy machine, and a coffee maker to assassinate the other board members of Project: Nefarious. Nefarious #4 Nefarious #5

Toy bios

During the battle of Mission City, the AllSpark brought a number of other machines to life, including Longarm, Final Stand toy bio, Jolt, Jolt toy bio, and Landmine. Landmine toy bio

When uncontrolled AllSpark energy came into contact with household electronics like cell phones, cameras, and video game controllers, the Real Gear Robots were born.

Animated

The AllSpark's unique energies can affect ordinary Earth machines in strange and unpredictable ways, including, in rare instances, the spontaneous creation of a full-fledged Cybertronian lifeform. The first known instance of this phenomenon occurred during a battle against malfunctioning animatronic dinosaurs; although the Autobots didn't know it at the time, the combination of an electromagnetic pulse and the energies of Sari Sumdac’s AllSpark Key turned the mindless animatronics into sentient, if dimwitted, "Dinobots" with the ability to transform. Blast from the Past

Some months later, a battle between the Autobots and a newly-revived Megatron resulted in the destruction of the AllSpark's physical form and scattered numerous AllSpark fragments throughout Detroit and the surrounding area. The Elite Guard Although vast majority of these shards simply amplified or interfered with human technology, a few fragments had a more interesting effect on vehicles and other inanimate objects: two AllSpark fragments created the Constructicons Mixmaster and Scrapper from a pair of construction vehicles, Rise of the Constructicons while another fragment turned a heap of junk into the eccentric Wreck-Gar. Garbage In, Garbage Out Later still, a discarded AllSpark fragment somehow combined a forklift with an abandoned Headmaster unit and formed Dirt Boss. Three's a Crowd

The AllSpark mutation Strain-R transformed into a colander. The AllSpark Almanac II

Aligned continuity family

Prime cartoon

Exposure to Dark Energon turned one of Ratchet's discarded medical tools into an aggressive, insect-like mechanoid. Darkness Rising, Part 2

Ask Vector Prime

In Primax 509.28 Epsilon, a hyper-intelligent Grimlock used the Dark Energon in Unicron's head to grant life to the Technobots, a feat that should have been thousands of years ahead of its time. Ask Vector Prime, 2015/07/23 While some 'bots owed their existence to poisonous, chaotic energy sources like Dark Energon and Angolmois Energy, Vector Prime held that it was not the origins of a spark that determined its future alignment; in his view, all sparks, regardless of their origins, held the capacity for both good and evil. Ask Vector Prime, 23/07/2015

BotBots

Botbots Mad Libs

A glowing cloud of energon mist brought the BotBots to life. The Beginning of BotBots

BotBots cartoon

A mysterious cloud of energon mist descended upon an ordinary human shopping mall and turned the food and inanimate objects inside into mischievous "BotBots". While most of the newly-activated BotBots quickly got the hang of their new forms and divided themselves into small subgroups based on the nature of their alternate modes, four random objects left behind in the mall's lost and found room became the "Lost Bots", a group of misfits largely unaware of the wider mall beyond the four walls of the lost and found. Because her unique bonsai tree form distinguished her from the other BotBots who inhabited the mall, Bonz-Eye was unsure if any group would accept her at all. Lone Bot and Carb

Commercial appearances

Official Digital Commercial

A mysterious cloud of energon brought the BotBots to life, who caused havoc moments after they first activated. Official Digital Commercial

Notes

• The term "AllSpark Mutations" comes from Alliance #1.
• Screenwriter Roberto Orci has offered some potential explanations for the evil nature of on-screen AllSpark Mutations both at BotCon 2007 and on the official movie forum:
  • "Prime intended to use the AllSpark to repower Cybertron as it was intended. Megatron wants to abuse it by creating Transformers directly, which makes souless[sic], primal Transformers."
  • "It is meant to power Cybertron, not adapt human technology. Also, since all earth's tech is reverse engineered from Megatron, maybe that affects the outcome, too."
• A final explanation can be taken from a mission in Transformers: Autobots. When the Autobots attempt to retrieve the AllSpark, it produces drones from the local machinery to defend itself. As such, the AllSpark-created Transformers may have been feral as a survival mechanism.
  • Though this doesn't explain the Appliancebots having the Decepticon Insignia emblazed on themselves shortly after being created.
• None of the AllSpark Mutations that appeared in the movie were in the leaked script except for the Xbox 360 robot. In the film, the Xbox robot is joined by a Nokia phone, a Mountain Dew vending machine, and a steering wheel, but in the script, it is instead joined by an iPod, devices in a truck, and plasma televisions.
• Bumblebee originally featured a scene where the Autobot inadvertently brought the electronics in Charlie's house to life, necessitating a slapstick fight sequence in which Bumblebee, Charlie, and Memo had to unplug the hostile Transformers to deactivate them. This scene was cut very late in production, enough so that a version of it would find its way into both the junior novel and Junior Reader adaptations.