Transwarp Key

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The Transwarp Key is a powerful device. For many entities, planetary travel can be considered a demanding ordeal. Whether it be distance traveled, time required to travel, or the energy required to make the entire distance, it may not be ideal, and for some, even impossible. With the Transwarp Key, however, that distance shrinks significantly down, allowing for entities to travel between time and space, and what seems to be a challenge, even an impossibility in terms of travelling distance for even gods, has become nothing more than a short distance to travel.

Fiction

Movies

Rise of the Beasts film

Spoiler warning: Plot details for Rise of the Beasts follow. Spoilers expire in 46 days

On the homeworld of the Maximals, the Transwarp Key was kept under the protection of the Maximal leader, Apelinq. Due to the Key's capability of warping through space-time, it drew the attention of Unicron, the monster planet sending his Terrorcons to obtain the key to allow him a means to traverse to any worlds rich with Energon at any time.

Realizing the imminent danger as the leader of the Terrorcons, Scourge, was sent to retrieve it, Apelinq entrusted the device to Optimus Primal, who took it with him as he, Airazor, Cheetor and Rhinox escaped to a then-prehistoric Earth to hide away from Unicron and the Terrorcons.

Upon their arrival to the planet, Optimus Primal decided to have the Transwarp Key split into two halves, with Primal hiding his half within a temple in Peru, while Airazor kept her half sealed away in a falcon statue. Some time between the initial splitting of the Transwarp Key and 1994, Primal moved his half of the Transwarp Key, giving it to a small village of people aware of the Maximals' existence for safe keeping. The statue containing Airazor's half was eventually unearthed and taken to a museum on Ellis Island in New York City.

The Transwarp Keys during this time remained dormant, until museum intern Elena Wallace accidentally broke the falcon statue and activated the key's signal beacon, attracting the Autobots as well as the Terrorcons. The former saw the Key as a means to return to Cybertron, while the latter saw it as a means to summon Unicron to Earth. Both factions came to blows, but Scourge ended up escaping with the half of the Key.

Scourge would present the half of the Key to Unicron, believing that it was the whole piece, but Unicron tortured the Terrorcon leader, demanding he retrieve the other half.

When the Autobots arrived in Cusco, they made a plan to retrieve the other half of the Key, while their human ally, Noah Diaz, made plans to destroy it. Upon meeting with the Maximals and taking the Autobots to their village, Amaru presented the other half of the Transwarp Key to Optimus Prime, only for it to be temporarily stolen by Airazor, who had been corrupted by Scourge. Noah attempted to destroy the Key, but was convinced by Optimus Prime not to. Upon Noah's refusal, the remaining half was stolen by Airazor once more, and handed to Scourge.

With both halves reunited, Scourge connected the Transwarp Key to a newly formed Transwarp Drive, where it then opened a vortex that allowed for Unicron to come to Earth. The Transwarp Key, however, would be destroyed in the final battle by Optimus Prime in order to stop Unicron's arrival. Rise of the Beasts

Toys

Studio Series

• Optimus Primal (Leader class, 2023)
  • Movie: Rise of the Beasts
  • Hasbro ID number: 106

A painted Transwarp Key would be included with the Studio Series Optimus Primal as one of his accessories. Much like the Transwarp Key in the movie, the accessory is capable of splitting in half to replicate its state from the early portions of Rise of the Beasts.

Notably, the Transwarp Key is the first of the live-action movies' many artifacts to be included as an accessory in the Studio Series.