Earth

Mostly harmless.

The planet Earth, third from its sun in the Sol System in the Milky Way galaxy, is a world populated by a wide variety of native organic lifeforms, most notably, humans. Versions of this planet are known to exist in many dimensions within the multiverse, and it frequently becomes involved in the conflicts of the Transformers. Perhaps too frequently. Whenever something (or someone) leaves, escapes, or is otherwise ejected from Cybertron, there's a disproportionate chance it will eventually wind up on Earth.

Earth is superficially similar to the planet upon which you may reside, but has many subtle and not so subtle differences.

Generation 1

American animated continuity

Around nine million years BC, the Earth was visited by the Transformers Starscream and Skyfire, but Skyfire was caught in a polar wind storm and separated from Starscream, buried in ice. Fire in the Sky Then, four million years BC, the Transformers' spacecraft, the Ark, crash-landed in what would become the north-western United States, entombing the robots within in stasis. More than Meets the Eye, Part 1

Earth is home to many unusual creatures and "hidden civilizations." The underwater city of Sub-Atlantica, populated by water-breathing fish-like humanoids, gave rise to the legends of Atlantis and other sunken cities. Atlantis, Arise! Also, fire-breathing dragons existed naturally as late as the medieval era, though by the 20th century, they appeared to have died out. A Decepticon Raider in King Arthur's Court A possible descendant was the unique, reptilian creature known as the "Beast of Borneo" captured by big game hunter Lord Chumley. Prime Target

The magma energy of the Earth's core is channeled by a series of green crystalline structures, which the Decepticons attempted to exploit in 1984, exposing a crystal shaft in the North Pole and tapping the core's energy (while, at the same time, happening upon and reactivating the body of Skyfire). Fire in the Sky Another unusual aspect of the planet is the natural existence of electrum, a metallic alloy that renders Transformers invulnerable when coated in it. The Golden Lagoon

By the year 2005, human interaction with the Transformers had resulted in an advanced level of technology worldwide, and the foundation of the Earth Defense Command, which operates a series of space stations. Saturn's moon, Titan, was colonised, and an EDC base was established on Mars, while travel between star systems was hugely enhanced by the creation of warp gates. Earthling Spike Witwicky became Earth's ambassador, first to Cybertron, and then to other alien worlds as, through the Transformers, humanity came into contact with other races. Five Faces of Darkness

Japanese animated continuity

In the expanded fiction of the additional Japanese-exclusive animated series, the existence of the sunken continents Atlantis and Lemuria was confirmed. Later, it was revealed that a small group of Autobot and Decepticon Pretenders crash-landed on the planet in the Stone Age. While the Autobots used their Pretender abilities to adopt the form of humans, the Decepticons assumed monstrous forms and were mistaken by early man as "demons." Finally defeating the Decepticons and sealing them away - within the pyramids of Giza, the ruins of Atlantis and beneath the Nazca Lines of Peru - the Autobots then integrated themselves into human society, serving as secret protectors who quietly and subtly guided the evolution of human society.

Marvel Comics continuity

The Ark crashed into Earth four million years ago. Already present, and the site of the first Transformer battle on Earth, was the Savage Land - a hidden jungle in Antarctica where dinosaurs still live. It is believed the Savage Land was created by another, earlier race of aliens.

Some bloke called Jesus was born over 2000 years ago, or so legend says, leading eventually to the holiday called Christmas.

In the year 1017AD, the Autobot Navigator and his companion arrived on Earth searching for the lost Ark. Their ship landed in England and the companion would look around every few centuries, and he would be named the Man of Iron by the awed residents of Stansham; his first appearance turned the tide of a great battle.

By the 1980s, Earth was involved in a Cold War driven by the United States of America and the Soviet Union. The planet was also threatened by the international terrorist group Cobra, who was opposed by America's G.I. Joe organisation and its international equivalent Action Force. There also existed a group called S.H.I.E.L.D., an American spy organisation that primarily handled an unknown dinosaur variant, and otherwise seemed to have little prominence.

By a quirk of genetics, the odd human proved capable of wielding superpowers. The earliest known was a vigilante named Spider-Man who vanished after 1984 for unknown reasons, though he did clash with the Decepticons and caused Megatron to rethink how dangerous humans were.

The Autobot and Decepticon war would rage until 1991 before a brief lull; both sides would relocate their bases to multiple locations, and while often battling in America they would also strike in the United Kingdom, Peru, Canada, Mexico, Japan and Argentina. Responsibility for dealing with them in the States fell to the Intelligence and Information Institute, another American spy group, and their military wing RAAT. Diplomatic relations were tried early on with the President of the United States, but failed.

In 1993, the Decepticons struck Earth with overwhelming force, devastating cities and slaughtering millions, merely as a way of attracting Autobot attention. Even this was dwarfed when the Cybertronian warlord Jhiaxus blew up San Francisco the following year. The long-term impact this had on Earth is unknown.

In an alternate timeline, the bulk of the Autobot/Decepticon war moved off-world in 1990 and a small Earthforce remained to contain two duelling Decepticon factions (who later united). The Autobot base was located in Canada, where an abnormally high number of polar bears roam the wilderness; the animals have even become bold enough to approach the Autobot base.

In several alternate timelines where Unicron attacked in 2006, the Autobots were allowed to build a city on Earth and it would become a major location for scattered Autobots to regroup after Decepticon conquest of Cybertron. Diplomatic relations were strong between human and Autobot, and futuristic technoloy such as weather-control machines were gifted to mankind.

In yet another timeline, the Americas were brutally conquered after 2005 by Galvatron.

IDW comics continuity

Earth was one of many planets seeded as part of Shockwave's energon initiative. It is the only world where this plan succeeded, leaving it which in Ultra-Energon ore, which can be used as a mighty power source. Both Shockwave and the Dynobot tactical unit were left buried on Earth.

A brief, unauthorised Decepticon landing on Earth saw the eruption of Mount St Helen in 1984. In an investigation, two Decepticons were salvaged by the underfunded government organisation Skywatch; they not only used this find to get more funding, they reprogrammed them to use them as agents.

Another unauthorised landing, this time by the rogue Scorponok, occured at an unknown point in time; he made contact with a number of amoral private corporations, leading to the formation of the Machination.

The planet was officially invaded by the Decepticons sometime during 2002, presumably for the purposes of harvesting its local resources; a detachment of Autobots, led by Prowl, followed them in an attempt to thwart their aims. Decepticon agents were placed in multiple areas, such as the United States government and the separatists of Brasnya. However, the recent discovery of Ore-13 by Starscream's team prompted the treacherous lieutenant to break protocol in an effort to rebel against Megatron. Autobot agent Ratchet also broke protocol by initiating direct contact with three humans, who proved invaluable in gaining intelligence on Starscream's operations.

The discovery of Ore-13 threatened to make Earth the new front line in the war between the Autobots and Decepticons. Megatron carried on the standard strategem of igniting conflict between humans to weaken their kind for conquest, but Autobot interference made him escalate things drastically. The Transformers became known to humanity, with the Machination attempting to exploit this.

About a year on from this, everyone suddenly forgot they knew about the Transformers, while a disgruntled Sunstreaker) made a deal that saw the Decepticons gain an undefended Earth. A destructive war occured between Decepticon and human, with New York City seized as a base.

Beast Era

Beast Wars

The mysterious aliens known as the Vok chose prehistoric Earth, which they dubbed Nexus Earth, as the site of an experiment, and seeded the planet with vast amounts of raw Energon, installing a second, artificial moon into the planet's orbit and placing several devices (including Stonehenge) at strategic points on the planet.

Around the time of the emergence of proto-hominids, a group of Maximals and Predacons from Cybertron's future travelled back in time to prehistoric Earth, where they waged a war they dubbed the "Beast Wars," and encountered the Vok, interfering in their plans. Deciding that the Beast Warriors had contaminated their experiment, the Vok activated the second moon, transforming it into a giant laser weapon with which they planned to detonate the Energon seeded throughout the planet, wiping it clean of life. This plan was foiled by the Maximal leader, Optimus Primal, but the vast majority of the raw Energon on the planet was transformed into stable, cube form.

Both factions soon became aware of early homonids. A foiled Predacon attempt to slaughter them caused them to both disperse and develop knowledge of crude tools and weapons; Cheetor happily intervened in the natural course of Time by teaching the young hominids simple physics lessons; and after the end of the war, when the Transformers returned to Cybertron, Waspinator was left on the planet as the leader and god of a hominid tribe. Although they eventually rejected him and he too returned to Cybertron, it is unclear precisely how much influence Waspinator may have had on the evolution of humanity and their culture. Many would find this dizzturbing.

Interestingly, by the time immediately prior to the Beast Wars, Earth and its sector in space was declared off-limits by order of the Maximal High Council, and likely all information about it tightly regulated. It's unknown precisely when and why this ban was initiated. However, it related to the events in BWII...

(Note: in the Japanese dub of Beast Wars, the Transformers referred to the planet they were stranded on as "Energoa", before they realised it was prehistoric Earth.)

Beast Wars II

A future version of Earth was later visited by Maximals and Predacons under the command of Lio Convoy and Galvatron, respectively. At first known only as "Gaea", the world was known to have two sentient inhabitants, a girl named Artemis and her companion Moon. Although the presence of what seemed to be a decimated Tokyo Tower suggested that Gaea was Earth, it was not fully confirmed until release of the Robot Masters toyline's version of Lio Convoy, the bio to which revealed that Earth had been devastated by mankind's tampering with the power source known as Angolmois energy.

Robots in Disguise

Thousands of years ago, the Autobot high council hid Fortress Maximus on Earth. The many parts of its activation mechanism, such as O-Parts, the Orb of Sigma, and Cerebros, came to be located within relics left behind by ancient human civilizations. In the 1940s, a crew of Autobots was dispatched to the planet to check up on things, unsuccessfully. In the present day, the biggest problem facing humanity is a lack of access to energy. Doctor Onishi is the world's foremost expert on locating and cataloguing new energy sources, and during the course of his work he located Fortress Maximus and some of the o-parts. Cue the second biggest problem for humanity, as their top energy expert is kidnapped by a giant robot hand.

Unicron Trilogy

Cartoon continuity

The symbol on Earth's Cyber Keys.

After the first defeat of Unicron, Earth was chosen as one of the planets to receive a Cyber Planet Key, which would have reformatted the planet into a Transformer colony. However, the colony ship Atlantis, also carrying the Omega Lock, crashed onto the planet before it could begin its mission.

(Note: A lost undersea city was found earlier during the Armada series, one powered by a Mini-Con from the Air Defense Mini-Con Team. A hologram described that the civilization had been quite advanced, but was destroyed by its own power. The human children deemed this city to be Atlantis, but it is possible that it was a completely different civilization.)

Some time later, when the Mini-Cons fled Cybertron to escape being used as tools, their ship came out of warp above Earth. Impacting onto the planet's moon, the Mini-Con ship broke in half sending a large chunk of the craft into Earth's atmosphere. Mini-Con storage panels were spread across the globe and the ship itself crashed onto the surface, where they laid dormant for nearly a million years.First Encounter Earth's fate being tied to that of Cybertron in the Unicron Trilogy is a form of predestination. The human Rad White visited Cybertron millions of years ago via a completely unexplained timeslip and encountered the mini-cons upon birth, releasing them from Unicron's control and pretty much sealing this fated relationship for good.

Movie (2007)

Movie/Prequels

The powerful All Spark crashed onto Earth around 10,000 B.C.E., followed a few thousand years later by the Transformer Megatron who would become buried at the Arctic Circle. The discovery of the latter would either lead to the formation or retasking of the Sector Seven organisation, a United States secret service that may or may not have previously dealt with other alien encounters. Hoover Dam would be built as a secret holding base for Sector Seven, near to populous Mission City.

Through Megatron, much of modern human technoogy would be created via reverse-engineering and much of modern American history driven by Sector Seven. Oppenheimer created the atom bomb through reverse-engineered technology; the "space race" (including more secret parts of it) was won by America solely due to Megatron's bits; and Three Mile Island was caused by poking at the All Spark.

By the 21st Century, the United States had thus become so powerful the United States Military possessed bases in foreign countries such as Qatar and NASA had total supremacy over space-related matters. Sector Seven had its own paramilitary wing and prisons, all while being so secret the Secretary of Defence was unaware of its existence.

In 2003, covert Transformers (both Bumblebee and Decepticon) arrived on Earth to search for the All Spark, successfully evading and sometimes killing any Sector Seven forces. Another and seemingly unrelated faction would attempt the same thing, even getting their operative Dewbot inside the Hoover Dam base. Operating at the fringes were human vigilantes such as the mysterious Agent X and the Lunchables Brigade paramilitary, the latter having some form of contact with the Autobots.

In 2007, Optimus Prime and the Autobots arrived on Earth to secure the All Spark, while the Decepticons learned of the existence of Archibald Witwicky's glasses. Open warfare would result, ending in a final battle with both the military and the Autobots fighting against the Decepticons at Mission City. Sector Seven were decimated, but the Decepticons were still defeated thanks in part to two youths. Astoundingly, much of humanity remained ignorant of the Transformers' existence despite the decimation of a major city in broad daylight.

Games

There are several divergent timelines where the presence of other Transformers or different strategies undertaken altered the entire pattern of events.

Some have the same basic outcome, but with greater and more wide-ranging devastation to America and greater (but futile) resistance by Sector Seven. At least one resulted in not only wider destruction but in complete Decepticon victory.

In the most severe divergence, the rogue Decepticon general Mainframe reached Earth before the Autobots and established an army and base at the Arctic. He began taking out every Autobot agent arriving on Earth, whilst searching for the All Spark, and eventually began sweeping the Earth with large numbers of drone units. He was eventually defeated by the Earthbound Chevy Autobots unit; the impact this had on Starscream's attempts to gain the All Spark, not to mention Earth itself, are unknown.

Titan Magazines

In a further divergent timeline, the Decepticons succeeded at Mission City and conquered the United States. While NATO regrouped to try and oppose them, its forces proved no match for Decepticon retaliation. The crisis caused Russia to join up with NATO, and resulted in extensive damage to Paris, including the loss of the French centre of government.

Via a processing station at Savannah, Georgia, Megatron used the All Spark to begin transforming Earth into a new Cybertron. The Autobots eventually killed him and destroyed the All Spark, but the fundamental damage was already done: Earth's core was infected, causing the planet to be torn apart by continuing techno-organic activity. Unnatural disasters spread across the Earth, along with areas spewing out raw energon and a strange illness affecting scores of people. This would eventually be stopped with Nucleon.

On top of this, attempts to rebuild the liberated United States were constantly thwarted by a Decepticon terror campaign; both Autobot and NATO forces (the American military having been decimated) operated on US soil, attempting to defend it. The Decepticons eventually re-conquered 600+ miles of US territory centred on Savannah, claiming it as an autonomous Decepticon Heartland.

External links

• Earth on Wikipedia