Cybertronian (faction)

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

This article is about the empire built up by the Second Generation Decepticons. For the term in Generation 1 cartoon, see Decepticon Empire.

The Cybertronians are a faction from the Generation 2 portion of the Generation 1 continuity family. They're also known as Decepticons and are sometimes referred to as Second Generation Transformers. Combinations of these names are also possible.

The emblem of the Cybertronian Empire. They're not Decepticons, honest. Or are they?

The Cybertronians are an offshoot of the Transformer race, more specifically the Decepticons. They share many of the philosophies of their ancestors, but otherwise do not take kindly to being associated with them. The Cybertronians view themselves as something better, a stage of Transformer life far surpassing the others. This, combined with their Decepticon-inherited belief that Transformers are worth more than not-Transformers, puts the Cybertronians in their own minds so far up the food chain that they can barely conceive creatures not Transformer as alive at all. This part of their culture also widens the gap between them and the rest of the Transformer race; The facts that the Autobots view even the smallest of creatures worthy of protection and the Decepticons are not necessarily opposed to interspecies alliances while also experiencing sadistic pleasure from harming not-Transformers does not mesh with the Cybertronians' favored truth.

The Cybertronians serve the Liege Maximo, a gigantic Transformer who is one of the very first of the Transformer species and also the progenitor of the Decepticons. Their main tasks are to maintain and expand the Hub, the Liege Maximo's "home", which is a network of eco-structured planets and other astronomical bodies. The Cybertronians carry out these objectives with little to no emotional investment, which they are simply incapable of. It was Primus's plan to shut down reproduction via budding at a calculated point to prevent his life force becoming watered down too much, which would lead to indifferent, amoral Transformers. Given the Liege Maximo's use for the Cybertronians in his grand plan, it is not unlikely he manipulated the Decepticons into rediscovering budding, thereby providing himself with a powerful, disciplined army willing to fight for a self-destructive, yet higher purpose.

Like some other isolated Transformer groups, the Cybertronians have developed an appearance that easily sets them apart from the other Transformers. They have a tendency towards a uniform color scheme of green and silver, at times with added bits of yellow. Like proper villains, they also have a thing for spikes, horns and skull motifs.

We are a hand opening -- spread across the four corners of the universe. Closing, we are a fist of iron, mighty enough to crush worlds! We are fire, a wrathful flame to purge the stain of lesser life from the canvas of the cosmos. All that we see -- is ours by right.Jhiaxus get all poetically when he's upset, "Escalation!"

Fiction

Marvel Generation 2 comics

The first of the Transformers that would later form the Cybertronian faction came to life about 4 million years ago during the reign of Trannis. In need of more troops, the Decepticons had rediscovered the long-forgotten practice of budding. They were able to rapidly expand their population using this method, unaware the new troops were lacking in the emotional (read: loyalty) department and that this process also generated something else, which would millions of years later become known as the Swarm. The Power and the Glory

During the reign of Straxus, the Cybertronians-to-be united and left Cybertron, as they were unable to feel any emotional attachment to it and objectively recognized it for the used-up husk it had become. War Without End! Perhaps called by the Liege Maximo, they came upon the ancient Transformer and agreed to serve him. The Liege Maximo had the army split; Most of the troops were put to work guarding and maintaining the Liege Maximo's planet-spanning Hub, while a fraction, the elite, was placed under Jhiaxus's command and sent out to conquer and eco-structure any worthwhile planet they'd encounter so that it could become part of the Hub. A Rage in Heaven!

In the human year 1993, Jhiaxus's forces were operating from the K'Tor Cluster, their base the Cybertronian flagship the Twilight. Up until then, the Cybertronians had been able to keep under the other Transformer factions' radar, but the growing number of "little Cybertrons" didn't stay unnoticed. Fragmented portions of the Autobot army were the first to become aware of the lingering threat. They initially fought the various smaller eco-structuring parties with hit and run tactics while analyzing the unknown foe, then called in the rest of the Autobot army when it was clear the threat was too big for them to handle. Grimlock called Optimus Prime to one of the eco-structured planets he thought abandoned, but moments after explaining the situation, the Twilight opened fire on them. Instead of killing them, Jhiaxus had the Autobots captured and, in his own words, educated. Optimus Prime and Grimlock were brought before him, and he explained the history of his faction as well as how the war between the Autobots and Decepticons was a relic only believed still relevant because they had missed the past 4 million years. The Autobots weren't much impressed, stealing back their shuttle and escaping the Twilight to fight another day.

Their escape was monitored, but Jhiaxus's allowed them to get away so he could follow them to their base and destroy the entire Autobot army in one fell swoop. War Without End! Along the way, the Autobots noticed their attackers and entered the K'tord Nebula in hopes the stories about that region of space would discourage the Cybertronians from pursuing. They didn't, causing both Autobot and Cybertronian to fall victim to the influence of the nebula's inhabitants. The strength of will of both Optimus Prime and Jhiaxus eventually prevented the soldiers from slaughtering each other till the last mech standing, and the two factions agreed to a momentary truce that allowed the Autobots to leave unfollowed. Primal Fear!

Alignment

"Alignment" was written by Simon Furman without permission of Hasbro and is included here as pseudocanon to provide insight into authorial intent.

Notes

• The Cybertronian faction-symbol was also adopted by Bludgeon's Decepticon forces during their period of exile from Cybertron while operating outside of the Milky Way. It's possible the symbol has a common cultural meaning that would cause two disconnected groups of Decepticons expatriates to gravitate towards it. In a real world sense, it's likely that the Generation 2 faction symbols were mandated by Hasbro as no current toys used the original Decepticon symbol.
• A parallel to the Cybertronian Empire was written into the IDW comics by Simon Furman, also the writer of the Marvel Generation 2 comics. In the IDW Generation 1 continuity, the pre-war Transformer leader Nova Prime was secretly a Cybertronian supremacist. On a mission with a few loyal mechs to conquer and colonize other planets, their ship disappeared into the Benzuli Expanse and emerged in the Dead Universe. Trapped, the group adjusted the methods with which they planned to accomplish their mission. In preparation for the cosmic Expansion, the scientist Jhiaxus began guiding the technological evolution of planets towards the ideal of Nova Prime. As a result, Gorlam Prime was pushed along a path to mechanical lifeforms and an overall landscape analogous to Cybertron.
  • Simon Furman also cryptically referred to the return of the Liege Maximo on his blog, though nothing ever came of that.
• It is brought up twice that the ancestors in a lineage through budding can feel the deaths of the descendants. Despite that, no Decepticon but Onslaught (who is too young to have Cybertronian descendants in the first place) ever shows pain at the deaths of any of the entire Cybertronian faction.