Autobot City (G1)

The name or term "Autobot City" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Autobot City (disambiguation).

The City of Townsville, a-- whoops, wrong show

Autobot City (also known as Autobot City: Earth) is a city established by the Autobots on Earth, often under the command of Ultra Magnus. As well as being outfitted so that a large number of Autobots can live and work in comfort, the city can transform into a fortress as shields engage and weapons appear all over it. The transformation needs to be triggered by a series of bulky manual operations.

Generally, it is linked to Metroplex in some way, sometimes to the point where "Autobot City" and "Metroplex" are used interchangeably.

Fiction

Generation 1 cartoon continuity

Madman The Transformers comic

"...and it's still costing less than the Big Dig."

By the year 2001, the Autobots' presence on Earth was sufficiently established that they began construction of their own high-tech, Transformer-scale city in North America. This work was carried out while the balance of the Autobot forces were engaged in an evacuation operation from the Decepticon-controlled Cybertron. The building site was also the location of a not-so-secret bunker where Optimus Prime stashed the Autobot Matrix of Leadership on the off-chance he should be captured or killed by the Decepticons during the exodus from Cybertron. The Transformers

The Transformers cartoon

All Your Base Are Belong to Metroplex!

The city was completed sometime before the year 2005 and was a key part of the Autobot war machine, acting as a stronghold and energy storage facility. While Optimus Prime himself commanded from the Autobot moon bases, Ultra Magnus was in charge of the city. Autobot City took major damage during a Decepticon attack in the same year. Several notable Autobots fell during the battle, and both Optimus Prime and Megatron mortally wounded each other.

Not long after Optimus's death and Ultra Magnus's promotion to Autobot supreme commander, the heavily damaged city was again attacked by the new Decepticon leader Galvatron and his forces. Magnus and a group of Autobots fled into space, drawing the Decepticons away from the still-smoldering city. The Transformers: The Movie

The city was fully repaired by 2006 and continued to operate for some time afterwards.

Following the destruction of Autobot Headquarters, Autobot City, now under the command of Blaster, became the main Autobot stronghold on Earth. Teletraan I, lost along with Autobot Headquarters, was succeeded by Autobot City's internal computer Teletraan II. Metroplex transformed into a section of the city, being able to detach himself and become mobile when needed. Thief in the Night Autobot City occasionally came under attack by Decepticon-hunting Decepticons, deceased Decepticons and was even the target of an overly ambitious human criminal's revenge.

In 2007, the Decepticons launched an attack on Autobot City to steal the Key to the Plasma Energy Chamber. However, the damage was minor compared to the 2005 attack on the city. The Rebirth, Part 1

Japanese Generation 1 cartoon continuity

Scramble City: Mobilization

At some undetermined point in time, Optimus Prime ordered the construction of a massive mobile fortress code-named Scramble City, believing that the Autobots would need a much larger base if they were to defeat the Decepticons. Housed in a gigantic underground facility, numerous Autobots and their human allies (Spike, Carly, and Chip among them) worked to complete the behemoth under the leadership of the newly arrived Ultra Magnus.

Unfortunately, Megatron caught wind of some sort of secret project and ordered Soundwave to investigate. While Blaster and his cassettes managed to drive off most of the Decepticon cassettes, Ratbat managed to sneak into the cavern and return with an intelligence report. After receiving the report, Megatron immediately ordered an attack to destroy Scramble City before it was complete.

The initial attack led by Starscream was repelled, so Megatron decided to dispatch a second wave of attackers: the Stunticons! The Stunticons put up a much better showing than the previous attackers, putting the Autobot defenders under heavy pressure and driving Superion to the brink of defeat. The Combaticons also arrived to reinforce the Decepticon attack and quickly forced Superion to flee.

Unfortunately for the Decepticons, the Autobots held them back long enough for Scramble City to become operational. Ultra Magnus dispatched the Protectobots, then transformed Scamble City to mobile station mode and brought it into battle. Transforming into the towering Metroplex, Scramble City then sent the Decepticons packing with a single shot. Scramble City: Mobilization

Robotmasters

Brave Maximus was integrated into Autobot City as well. 2007 TakaraTomy timeline

The Headmasters cartoon

By 2011, Autobot City was still the Autobots' Earth-based stronghold, and seemed to be under the command of Ultra Magnus. A space bridge terminal was built into the city, connecting the Earth to similar terminals on Cybertron and Athenia. Four Warriors Come out of the Sky

The space bridge terminal in Autobot City was ultimately destroyed by Sixshot, causing a chain reaction that destroyed all other space bridge terminals in the network. Daniel Faces His Biggest Crisis Ever!!

While defending Autobot City and the Earth from another attack by Sixshot, Ultra Magnus was killed. Ultra Magnus Dies!!

Wings Universe

Wings Universe is based on the Generation 1 cartoon, but deviates from it in cosmetic ways and continuity points.

During the Battle of Autobot City in 2005, Devastator crashed through the walls of Autobot city. Ultra Magnus, Red Alert, Sideswipe, and Tracks counterattacked, blasting Devastator back into his component Constructicons, but the Decepticons gunned down Red Alert and forced the others into retreat. Further behind, Megatron was triumphant at their breach of the city. A Flash Forward

Following the Rebirth, Optimus Prime and his Autobots chased Galvatron and Zarak's forces into deep space, leaving behind only a small number of defenders at Autobot City to guard against further Decepticon appearances.

In 2010, several first generation Autobots from Autobot City deployed to assist Pyro's second generation Autobots against Clench's Decepticon Syndicate at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. When the Decepticons looked to be losing, Breakdown tried to shoot the forestonite canisters to blow everyone up. Instead, the forestonite gas leaked and spread, granting powers to all the Transformers present. The Decepticons' advantage lost, Clench called a retreat, and the Autobots were victorious. Afterwards, Streetwise elected to remain with Pyro's forces rather than return to Autobot City, feeling more at home with the Generation 2 Autobots. Generation 2: Redux

In 2012, Autobot City played host to a number of alien ambassadors. Outside, Cliffjumper, not trusting the "new" forestonite powers, had several forestonite-enhanced Autobots demonstrate their powers on dummy Decepticon targets. Meanwhile, Ultra Magnus briefed Pyro's team about a break-in at Quantum Laboratories and assigned them the task of finding the perpetrator. By this point, Autobot City had memorial statues to Windcharger, Huffer, Red Alert, and Wheeljack. A Flash Forward, Part 2

Later, after dealing with Jhiaxus on Qre, Pyro's team returned along with several clones to Autobot City on Earth to inform Magnus of what had transpired. They were then interrupted by Sizzle, whose forestonite-based precognition had just given him a vision of the "Machine Wars". A Flash Forward, Part 6

As the Autobots and Decepticons fought the Cybertronians in the Machine Wars in 2013, Obsidian utilized the Sandstorm clone to send a signal via a serro-gyro mekarach to Earth. Receiving the signal in Autobot City, Pyro then deployed Alpha Team, led by Rapido, and Bravo Team, led by Serpentor, through a space bridge to reinforce the united Autobot-Decepticon forces on Cybertron.

One week later, Autobot City was host to the signing of the Pax Cybertronia among the Autobots, Decepticons, and Jhiaxus's clones. A Common Foe

Marvel The Transformers comics

Autobot City appeared exclusively in the UK portion of the Marvel Comics continuity.

The plans for Autobot City: Earth were finalized in 2003. Both the Autobots and the governments of Earth had hands in its construction. Ark Duty It was completed and opened in 2004, likely on the same site that Galvatron had built a superweapon to destroy Unicron in 1986 Target: 2006 (putting it in or near Oregon). Despite interference from Shockwave, the city opened on schedule, and relations between Autobots and humans were strengthened. Aspects of Evil!

It was attacked by the Quintessons in 2008, leaving many Autobots severely wounded and the city in terrible shape. The Quintessons were only driven off when Hot Rod activated the Transformer that made up the city's sentient core, Metroplex (the city needed a Transformer within it to be able to transform itself). Space Pirates! While successful, Metroplex's emergence only damaged the city further, and it was still in a state of disrepair the following year. Time Wars

In the revised timeline following the Time Wars, the Autobots fled there in 2009 to escape a Decepticon-dominated Cybertron. The Void! They had long since reclaimed the planet by 2356; then, Autobot City was providing medical care for a decrepit Rodimus Prime, who was possessed by Unicron. Aspects of Evil!

Battle Beneath the Ice

When the scientists of CalTech caught wind of a drilling team discovering a futuristic city beneath the ice of the Erebus oil field, they contacted Autobot City. The Autobots responded, and dispatch Slingshot, Skydive, and Hot Rod to help with the ensuing investigation. Battle Beneath the Ice

Big Looker storybooks

At work at Autobot City, Kup and Hot Rod heard on the radio about the unveiling of a voice-controlled robot car at the coliseum. Leaving their tasks behind, the two went to attend the event. However, their talk about the robot car was overheard by Soundwave, who relayed it to Galvatron. Galvatron had been looking for a suitable worker to build him a city akin to the Autobot City, Decepticon City, and believed the robot car to be the ideal option.

The Decepticons set out to steal the robot car, but Kup and Hot Rod spotted them at the coliseum. Kup ordered Hot Rod to return to Autobot City and warn their comrades while he'd keep an eye on the Decepticons. Hot Rod raced back and explained the situation to Ultra Magnus, who immediately had the Autobots transform and roll out to stop whatever the Decepticons were planning to do. Car Show Blow Up

Dreamwave Generation One continuity

Construction was begun on Autobot City in 2004, after Prowl and several other Autobots realized they still needed a presence there and did not feel fully at home on Cybertron. The Route of All Evil

Classics toy bios

Ultra Magnus was City Commander of Autobot City, a position to which he was appointed by Optimus Prime. In this capacity, Magnus defended Autobot City against Decepticon attacks led by Skywarp. Classics Ultra Magnus vs. Skywarp toy bio

Knights of Unicron

The Autobot City Metroplex, located on Earth, was the second venue for the Knights of Unicron on their 2014 "Till All Are One" tour. Knights of Unicron

2005 IDW continuity

Wishing to appear less imposing to the worried citizens of Earth, the recently revealed Metrotitan transformed into his city mode, which Optimus Prime dubbed "Autobot City". The Last Autobot Initially located in Monument Valley above a massive cache of Ore-13, Windblade later activated the Titan's flight protocols during a pitched battle against the forces of Baron Karza. Valley Forge Subsequently, Autobot City became an airborne staging ground for the Autobots, capable of travelling around the world while monitoring crisis spots and providing air support. To Walk Among the Chosen

Star Trek vs. Transformers

When explaining the history of the Autobots to the crew of the USS Enterprise, Bumblebee recalled a battle at Autobot City as the Earth War became ever more violent. Prime's Directive, Part Two

Games

Transformers Legends

The Decepticons launched an all-out assault on Autobot City, punching through the defenses and leading to Optimus Prime's defeat at the hands of Megatron. One Shall Fall...

Transformers Roleplaying Game

Termagax was once invited to Autobot City to give a lecture about the history of combiner technology. The Enigma of Combination

Toys

The Transformers

Not enough orange.

• Metroplex (Autobot City, 1986/2008)

Notes

Rejected for not having enough guns.

Maybe they had to rebuild it after every time it transformed into battle station mode?

• The concept of an "Autobot City" originated with the Metroplex toy. Informed in early 1985 that this (then unnamed) figure was to be part of the following year's toy range, but not given much specific information to work with, Flint Dille and the other writers at Sunbow incorporated an "Autobot City" that could convert into a battle fortress into their outline for the second draft of The Transformers: The Movie. This outline was then given to writer Ron Friedman to expand to a full screenplay, and from there, artist Floro Dery created a detailed design for the city—all without either of the two men ever seeing the toy to base their work on it (which wasn't the only instance of this confused design process occurring around this time; see also "Anibots"). As production carried on, Dery was instructed to redesign the city to incorporate elements of the Metroplex toy (evidenced in the film itself by the city's shift from orange to white as it transforms and the appearance of a turret that is clearly Metroplex's tank partner, Slammer), but beyond these few token nods, the finished design of the city still doesn't really look anything like the Metroplex toy. This would, in the subsequent third season of the cartoon, lead to the relationship between Metroplex and the city being vague and ill-defined; the giant Autobot is never named in the movie, but the cartoon often treats "Autobot City" and "Metroplex" as if they are the same thing despite them not looking alike. The episode "Thief in the Night" provided the best way to reconcile things, by presenting Metroplex as a smaller sub-section of the larger Autobot City.
• The promotional trailer for The Transformers: The Movie features animation not seen in the final version of the movie, including a different design for Autobot City which was more white than the final orange. It is perhaps an earlier design for the city as some animation sequences in the movie featured the same primarily white coloration.
• The storyboard for the 1986 movie refers to Autobot City as "Fortress Maximus" in its fully weaponized state. This also carried over to the Marvel comic adaptation of the movie in a caption.
• The full panoramic view of Autobot City as seen in The Transformers: The Movie reveals that one of its main intended purposes was the generation of energy (for the purpose of converting it into Energon). Aside from the hydroelectric dam seen in nearly every shot of the city in season 3, there's also a wind farm as well as an oil refinery. Those are never seen again after the movie. Floro Dery's original concept art, which is used as the basis for all redrawings of the establishing shot, also identifies the dome-shaped building next to the dam as an "Energon compressor", and the mountains in the background as "Montana mountains". Additionally, there's supposed to be a larger dome-shaped building in the center of the city that can be glimpsed in some of the renditions from the cartoon (but ironically not in the movie) that's supposed to be the control center.
• Throughout season 3, establishing shots of Autobot City typically depicted it from the same angle as seen in the movie, but those were (almost) always redrawn from scratch, varying from highly detailed to laughably crude. For example, the various artists could seemingly never agree on how many platforms the Energon compressor was supposed to have (ranging from one to five), the water levels of the river underneath the dam kept changing drastically, the dome-shaped control center would sometimes be partially obscured by the tall tower in front of it (like in Floro Dery's original concept art) while other artists would misinterpret the perspective and instead draw it as a half-dome connected to the side of said tower, the main color of the city varied between gold and maroon, the Energon compressor and the hydroelectric dam would sometimes be the same color as Autobot City itself, while other times they were white like in the movie, the intersection of the two roads leading into the city alternated between a simple crossroads and a complex maze, the right drawbridge would sometimes have pillars of changing shapes while other times it was completely unsupported, and the exact shapes of the various buildings were also all over the place. Particular mention goes to "Thief in the Night", which explicitly depicts Metroplex's own city mode attached to Autobot City, the nighttime view from "Only Human", which is arguably the crudest rendition of them all, and simply depicts a lot of generic skyscraper-like buildings that only vaguely resemble the buildings that make up Autobot City, and the establishing shot from "The Rebirth, Part 1", which manages to be even more off-model. Additionally, in "Money Is Everything", the establishing shot (also shown from the same angle) instead depicts Autobot City transformed into its battle station mode from the movie for no apparent reason. (And no, it's not a recycled shot from the movie itself.) The only instance of a recycled shot occurs in "Carnage in C-Minor", which takes a shot from "Five Faces of Darkness, Part 5", rotates it clockwise by 25 degrees and zooms in a little bit. Also, as an aside, one thing that none of the various establishing shots ever manage to get right is the fact that the water flowing out of the hydroelectric dam is supposed to be moving!
• In the Marvel adaptation of the movie, the rendition of the panoramic view of Autobot City is based directly on Floro Dery's original concept art. Meanwhile, the IDW Transformers: The Animated Movie adaptation doesn't show a full panoramic view of Autobot City, instead deciding to have it partially obscured by Lookout Mountain... which is missing its telescope in this panel. (It's there on the subsequent page.)
• Autobot City never appeared in the Japanese cartoon continuity following The Headmasters, raising a few questions (mainly concerning what happened to it). While it is possible the Autobots simply dismantled the place when they went after the Decepticons (since there were only a small handful of Autobots left), it still fails to explain why humans seemed to have completely forgotten about the Transformers during the events of Super-God Masterforce. In Victory, it was shown there were sizable Autobot forces on Earth again, so maybe it was reactivated.
• The pop-up commentary on the 20th Anniversary DVD of The Transformers: The Movie claims that Autobot City is located near Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Foreign names

• Japanese: Scramble City (スクランブルシティ Sukuranburu Shiti), Cybertron Base, Earth (The Headmasters, 地球サイバトロン基地 Chikyū Saibatoron Kichi, "Autobot Base, Earth"), Cybertron City (The Headmasters, サイバトロンシティ Saibatoron Shiti, "Autobot City")