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. 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.

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. Also, fire-breathing dragons exist naturally as late as the medieval era, though by the 20th century, they appeared to have died out. A possible descendant was the unique, reptillian creatre known as the "Beast of Borneo" captured by big game hunter Lord Chumley.

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). Another unusual aspect of the planet is the natural existence of electrum, a metallic alloy that renders Transformers invulnerable when coated in it.

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.

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

In 1993, the Cybertronian warlord Jhiaxus blew up San Francisco.

IDW Comics continuity

Earth was invaded by the Decepticons sometime during 2002, presumably for the purposes of harvesting its local resources. 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.

A detachment of Autobots, led by Prowl, is also present on Earth in an attempt to prevent the Decepticons from pillaging the planet. One of its members, 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 threatens to make Earth the new front line in the war between the Autobots and Decepticons, especially as Megatron plots to ignite conflict between humans to weaken their kind for conquest. But if you didn't see that coming...

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 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. Eventually, the Maximals returned to Cybertron with the Predacon leader, Megatron their prisoner. The only surviving Predacon, Waspinator, was left on the planet as the leader of a tribe of protohumans. 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

Animated continuity

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 Contact Earth's fate being tied to that of Cybertron in the Unicron Trilogy is a form of predestination. The human Rad 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.

External links

• Earth on Wikipedia

From Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki, a Wikia wiki.