Mission City

City motto? Life is pain.

Mission City is a city in the United States of America. It may rival San Francisco as "worst place to live", because it's the kind of place where Mountain Dew machines thirst for human blood, Xbox 360s play with the lives of their owners, and steering wheels tend to kiss their drivers. It also had the poor fortune to be the location where the Autobots and the Decepticons threw down for control of the AllSpark.

It's located 22 miles north of the Hoover Dam. Its downtown has lots of Classically-detailed buildings from the early 20th Century which tend to shatter spectacularly when giant robots smash into them. Interstate 95 runs through it, somehow.

Fiction

Transformers film

After Bumblebee converted the AllSpark to a more portable form, Captain Lennox suggested that they hide the AllSpark in Mission City and rendezvous with military airlift to take it to safety. Defense Secretary John Keller agreed with him. Bumblebee and a military escort, soon augmented by the Autobots, left for the city.

En route, three Decepticons caught up to them and gave chase. Bonecrusher and Barricade began fighting through traffic, while Optimus Prime left the escort to hold them off. Bonecrusher engaged with the Autobot leader, while the other Autobots continued into downtown Mission City. Their human allies still inside Hoover Dam, meanwhile, had summoned F-22 Air Force fighters to provide aerial support.

Ironhide is the first person in some twenty years to consider Starscream a serious threat... with good reason for once.

Captain Lennox procured several short-wave radios from a nearby Pawn shop to contact the hoped-for aerial support, intending to summon Black Hawk helicopters for extraction of the AllSpark. They soon sighted a lone F-22 overhead and called for support, marking their location with green smoke. Too late, Ironhide realized that the incoming fighter was in fact Starscream. He ordered the humans and other Autobots to fall back, as he and Bumblebee lifted a Furby delivery truck to shield them from Starscream's attack. The resulting explosion crippled Bumblebee, severing his legs below the knees.

Meanwhile, contact with incoming Black Hawks was made, but the Autobots and soldiers came under fire from Brawl. Ratchet, Jazz and Ironhide all rushed in to combat the mighty Decepticon as the human soldiers fell back. Mikaela spotted a tow truck nearby and ran to procure it, while the crippled Bumblebee handed the AllSpark over to Sam.

Yeah, let's triple-team the guy who is suffering an identity crisis. That's fair.

Between the three Autobots and the human soldiers, Brawl suffered the loss of one of his missile launchers and his left arm (courtesy of Ratchet's saw) before being knocked off his feet. soon after, Megatron landed in the city streets, prompting the Autobots to call a retreat. Jazz stayed behind to hold off Decepticon leader, getting blasted aside for his efforts.

Autobots, attack! ...Guys?

Mikaela successfully hotwired the tow truck and drove it over to Sam and Bumblebee. As the same moment, Megatron carried Jazz into the air before slamming him into a building. Despite the Autobot's defiance, the Decepticon leader tore him in half, killing him.

On the ground, Captain Lennox's troops observed Brawl getting back to his feet, as well as the arrival of Blackout, who transformed and landed atop a building behind them. Under sporadic hostile fire, Lennox led his troops back to Bumblebee's position as Sam and Mikaela worked to hook Bumblebee to the tow truck. Lennox handed a flare to Sam and ordered him to take the AllSpark to a nearby rooftop, while Sergeant Epps summoned their Black Hawk support to pick him up. Ratchet and Ironhide promised Sam that they would protect him as he carried out the mission. After a quick farewell to Mikaela, Sam fled.

Megatron ordered the Decepticons to attack, prompting Ratchet and Ironhide into providing cover fire as Sam ran. As Brawl advanced on one side, Blackout dropping to the ground, attacked from the other, engaging with Ironhide. Blackout bashed aside the car that Ironhide tossed at him, then transformed and flew away. Mikaela finished securing Bumblebee and drove him off, as Brawl fired at them.

This is the only time Prime and Megs got to use their signature weapons. You fail us yet again, Michael Bay.

Optimus Prime arrived after his delay on the freeway, transforming and challenging Megatron. Still perched atop his building, Megatron tossed away the remains of Jazz and transformed. He scooped up Prime and took him for a dizzying ride through the streets and buildings of the city, smashing through an entire office building at one point before crashing to the street. The two exchanged their respective views on humanity and fisticuffs. Prime managed to get in a shot at Megatron, but a blast from Megatron's fusion cannon hurled Prime down the street and into the side of another building leaving him incapacitated.

With Ratchet and Ironhide alongside him, Sam continued sprinting for the building. Blackout slashed at Sam with his rotor weapon but missed, while Starscream managed to bring down both Ratchet and Ironhide before pulling back and returning to the skies. Sam was forced to continue onward alone.

Megatron, having left Optimus injured in another part of the city, flew down from the sky and transformed, demanding that Sam give up the AllSpark. As Sam darted through traffic, a near-collision with an SUV made him drop the cube, unleashing a pulse of its power. The pulse brought several machines to life, including part of the SUV and a Mountain Dew vending machine.

Gah! Heartburn!

Sam sprinted into the abandoned building, pursued by Megatron, who smashed through a floor practically on Sam's heels but failed to stop him from entering a fire stairwell.

Mikaela and Bumblebee stopped in an alley, while the fighting continued. After mustering her courage with Bumblebee's wordless support, Mikaela backed the tow truck into the street so that Bumblebee was facing forwards, then drove it full speed in reverse towards Brawl. Under heavy attack from two directions, Brawl suffered heavy damage before a final shot from Bumblebee hit him in the chest, bringing him down for good. He collapsed into the building where Lennox's troops had taken shelter.

It depends...how well do you take care of your pets?

As the Black Hawks closed in, Sam reached the rooftop and activated his flare. Starscream transformed and landed on a nearby building as the helicopters pulled up to the rooftop. Sam was inches away from handing off the AllSpark when Starscream shot the waiting Black Hawk out of the sky. Optimus Prime sprinted toward the building, determined to save Sam. Starscream continued watching from nearby while Megatron bashed his way onto the rooftop. Cornering Sam, Megatron demanded the AllSpark, but Sam defiantly refused. Megatron then unsheathed his barbed flail and bashed the building out from under Sam's feet. Optimus Prime, suspended most of the way up the building, caught the falling human. Prime then vaulted/fell down to street level, with Megatron diving close behind. The two metal titans smashed into the street, scattering more panicked humans, one of whom got himself flicked aside by Megatron.

Optimus Prime ordered Sam to take shelter behind him and to push the AllSpark into his chest if he was unable to defeat Megatron. As the two leaders laid into one another a second time, both Lennox's troops and Blackout moved in on their position. Epps called in a full air strike on Blackout and Megatron, advising that the targets would be marked. The troops then marked Blackout with green laser light as the F-22s closed in.

WWWWHHHHEEEEEEEE!!!

Blackout was to fire when he noticed the lasers lighting him up, so he instead turned to engage the soldiers, opening fire. Lennox raced at him on a procured motorcycle, evading Blackout's blasts and purposefully going into a long skid/slide along the ground. As Blackout was hit by fire from the F-22s, Lennox slid past and under him, firing several rounds directly up into the Decepticon's underside. Blackout fell dead to the pavement. Lennox urged his troops onward as Megatron appeared to be getting the upper hand over Optimus.

"Prime, could we maybe discuss this some time when you're not holding a corpse?"

As a second wave of F-22s approached the city, Starscream appeared in their midst, destroying three of them before the pilots realized what was happening. The surviving pilots attempted to engage the Decepticon, but Starscream escaped. The remaining F-22s made an attack run on Megatron, firing on him even as Lennox's troops also attacked, damaging his chest armor. Megatron advanced on Sam, but the injured Optimus managed to trip him over. As the weakened Megatron crawled towards Sam, Prime urged the human to push the cube into Prime's chest. Instead, Sam rammed the cube into Megatron's now partially exposed spark, killing him and destroying the AllSpark.

The Autobots and soldiers regrouped. Ironhide had recovered the remains of Jazz and handed them over to Optimus Prime. Optimus, saddened by the loss of a great comrade, thanked the humans for their effort and sacrifice. Bumblebee requested to stay with Sam, and Prime agreed.

Initial media reports called the attack "so-called alien activity" but the US government denied aliens had caused the Mission City destruction. Transformers

Transformers novel

The battle took place in Las Vegas instead. Transformers

Titan movie comics

The battle took place in Los Angeles instead. Starscream's Militia

Two years on, and Starscream is still unclear about why Optimus lured the Decepticons to this heavily populated city when he claims to like humans. #22's Star Screams

IDW movie comics

In the aftermath of the battle, Lennox's soldiers became acquainted with the Autobots whilst they hunted mutated transformers created by the released All Spark energies. Optimus Prime requested Lennox's help in allowing the Autobots to transport Jazz's remains out of Mission City whilst evading untrustworthy humans such as those from Sector Seven. When a suitable abandoned truck trailer found, the assembled soldiers had a moment of silence as Ironhide placed Jazz's body inside. Soon after the Autobots left, Agent Simmons and Sector Seven arrived to take away the dead Decepticons. Alliance #1

The Veiled Threat

According to The National Enquirer, the battle was caused by Elvis's robot alien offspring. The Veiled Threat

The Real Effing Deal

The official story is "several biomechanical prototypes by Mendelson Robotics" went haywire by accident; the government cleared Mendelson of any wrongdoing. The leaked Department of Defence reports also said that the tales of giant robots fighting are completely unfounded, even though their official story is it was big robots. No wonder certain bloggers worked out the cover story was crap. The Real Effing Deal

Revenge of the Fallen

See above, except replace "Mendelson" with McClaren Robotics.

Except when it's Massive Dynamics. Revenge of the Fallen (novel)

Some of which claimed the battle took place in Los Angeles. Revenge of the Fallen (film)

The terrifying thing is that this half-arsed cover-up actually worked.

Cyber Missions

Ratchet pursued Lockdown through Mission City when Lockdown set off some explosives which caused some damage to the roadway that would have to be explained by NEST. Lockdown got away with Ratchet's EMP blaster. Cyber Missions 3

Classified novels

Hyperdynamix's main laboratory was located in Mission City. It was attacked by three Decepticons deployed to cover up the theft of the prototype tanks they were developing. Battle Mountain

Related characters

Kid on freeway

Actor: Chip Hormess

This young man was riding on the freeway to Mission City when two robots suddenly fell off the overpass and landed in their lane. His mother barely skidding their car to a halt, the kid watched in shock as one of the robots was struck so hard one of its eyes popped out and it was knocked off the overpass on which they were sitting. As the other robot jumped after it, the kid said that the whole thing was cool.

SUV driver

Actor: Odette Yustman

Voice actor: Sílvia Goiabeira (Brazilian Portuguese dub), Marina García Guevara (Castilian Spanish dub), Virginie Méry (European French)

This young woman and two of her friends were driving around in her SUV when some kid nearly ran into her car. Failing to noticed the panicked bystanders running in the opposite direction, the woman asked if "that jerk" had dented her car. This was quickly forgotten as she noticed her steering wheel had come to life. It proceeded to wrap itself around her face. Her fate is unknown, but things are not looking good.

Woman in blue

This woman had the unfortunate circumstance of being caught in the middle of a tank firing shells at a truck. As the truck changed into a giant robot, it proceeded to do some questionably useful (but fun to see) somersaults over the missiles being shot at it, landing right near the woman and totally scaring the crap out of her. Of course, this raises another question: If a tank was shelling something, why did she stop right in its line of fire?

Xbox 360 owner

Actor: Bob Stephenson

This man was proudly carrying a newly purchased Xbox 360 down the street (as you do) when some sort of energy surged from some object that a kid was carrying. He heard the Xbox turn on and saw it sprout arms that began to harass him. Despite the fact that it probably cost a great deal of money, he threw the Xbox away, deciding that it wasn't worth his life.

Remember that, people: Gaming is not worth your life!

Notes

• Roberto Orci confirmed they had considered having the film climax at the Grand Canyon, which is close to the Hoover Dam and would've endangered a lot less civilians. [1]
• At BotCon 2007, at one of the movie's writers' panels, they explained that the original intent behind taking the All Spark to the city was not to "hide" it there, but simply to use the city as a rendezvous point, someplace relatively near the dam that might have a working radio they could use to call for help.
• Transformers: The Junior Novel set the final battle in the ostensibly non-fictional city of Las Vegas instead of Mission City, since it was set there in early drafts of the script. [2]
• Most of the city skyline shots clearly show Los Angeles. The downtown street scenes were primarily filmed there as well. No wonder Fassbinder was confused.
• The abandoned building that Sam runs into, however, is actually the long-abandoned Michigan Central Station, located in Detroit.
• And because things weren't muddled enough, the Mission City diorama backdrop in the Final Stand Screen Battles set is actually a Photoshopped version of Scranton, Pennsylvania.
• The battle of Mission City, portrayed in Transformers, contains several editing and plot errors, as well as some confusing editing choices (over and above Michael Bay's characteristic Shakey Cam point of view):
  • There's a short period at the beginning of the fight where Jazz and Ratchet are sitting around in vehicle mode. When Ironhide notices that the F-22 flying above the city is Starscream, they stay in vehicle mode. When Ironhide and Bumblebee pick up a Furby delivery truck for cover, they still remain in vehicle mode. When Starscream blasts them, and Sam discovers that Bumblebee has lost his legs, all Jazz does is pull back a few feet to give Bumblebee space to crawl. Sam even yells to Ratchet to aid Bumblebee and he still just sits there in vehicle mode.
  • When Brawl first shows up to the battle, Sam is standing next to Mikaela watching as the Decepticon tank approaches and then he takes off running. The next shot cuts back to Mikaela spotting the abandoned tow truck she's about to use to transport Bumblebee out of the city. The shot after that shows Sam is sitting in the rubble next to the AllSpark as Bumblebee crawls over to him. The last shot cut in with the previous shots makes it look as if Sam ran away just to sit down in the middle of the battlefield. Come on, Sam, where's your head at?
  • It's not entirely clear what most of the Decepticons' intentions are during the battle:
    • Blackout first appears on top of a building before being ordered by Megatron to attack. He then joins the fight, firing at Ironhide, then takes off again. He comes back a while later and slices up the street outside the diner but disappears again afterwards, not reappearing until Megatron and Optimus begin their final fight.
    • Starscream also defeats Ratchet and Ironhide, but then flies away instead of finishing them off or making a grab for Sam and the AllSpark. Though this is likely due to him knowing the Black Hawks are on their way to extract the AllSpark. This is further reinforced when he appears later to shoot them down.
    • Barricade, meanwhile, never shows up at all. Apparently having the road blocked in front of him is all it takes to scare this Decepticon off.
  • Also unclear is why the military thought they could smuggle the AllSpark out of town on a slow-moving helicopter, when fast-flying guys like Starscream and Megatron were around and well aware of the cube's location.
  • Fans have speculated that Starscream actually participated in the F-22 attack run on Megatron. While there's no concrete evidence either way, it doesn't make much sense for him to be destroying the jets beforehand if he's just going to turn around and help them in their mission a few seconds later. When asked about it, screenwriter Roberto Orci explicitly refused to address this theory since it would pose a plot thread for the sequel. This turned out not to be the case, and it was never addressed in Revenge of the Fallen or Dark of the Moon. Meanwhile, IDW's The Reign of Starscream issue 1 has Starscream consider this an option, but soon has the decision taken from his hands.
  • Epps emphatically states that F-22 pilots would never fly between buildings, as they'd just observed Starscream doing. Yet a few minutes later, that's exactly what the real F-22s do.
    • It's possible that with the giant robots currently battling in the streets, protocol was waived for the missile strikes.
  • The denizens of Mission City are remarkably well-composed considering that global communications networks have been shut down. You'd think there'd be a bit more panic in the streets... especially with all the audible explosions, and people fleeing from previous battlegrounds. Yet nobody ever panics until those freaking giant robots come literally crashing into the next nearby building. You'd think the girl whose steering wheel is brought to life by the Allspark would have bigger problems than Sam "denting her car"... such as those giant robots fighting everywhere. This goes even beyond your average weirdness censor.
  • Center City replaced Mission City in the 2007 PSP game.