Unicron War

The Unicron War is a campaign from the Generation 1 continuity family.

The Unicron War refers to Unicron's attack upon Cybertron and his efforts to destroy the Matrix of Leadership. Unicron's threat is successfully repelled by a joint effort between the Autobots and the Decepticons and by Hot Rod opening the Matrix of Leadership).

Fiction

Generation 1 cartoon continuity

The Transformers cartoon

The Unicron War spun directly out of the events of the Battle of Autobot City. The planet-eater Unicron was first drawn to the Transformers on Earth and Cybertron when the dying Optimus Prime bequeathed the Autobot Matrix of Leadership to Ultra Magnus. Unicron recognized the Matrix as the only thing capable of eliminating him and so, seeking a means to destroy it, began what would be known as the "Unicron War".

Following the Battle of Autobot City, Decepticon leader Megatron and several of his injured subordinates were thrown out of Astrotrain and set adrift in outer space. Unicron sought to use these discarded Decepticons as his servants. Upgrading Megatron into Galvatron and the other Decepticons into Cyclonus, Scourge, and the Sweeps, he charged them with the mission of destroying the Matrix.

After a brief trip to Cybertron to reassert his authority as leader of the Decepticons, Galvatron then led his forces back to Autobot City on Earth. Now under the command of Unicron, Galvatron's single goal was to destroy Ultra Magnus and the Matrix within him. When Ultra Magnus and several other Autobots fled in shuttles, Galvatron and the Decepticons gave chase, shooting one shuttle down on the planet Quintessa, and seemingly destroying the shuttle piloted by Ultra Magnus. Galvatron, thinking his mission a success, returned to Unicron.

It was a ruse, however, and Ultra Magnus and his Autobots had escaped to the Planet of Junk. Informing Galvatron of his failure, Unicron dispatched his servants to Junk to finish the job. Galvatron was more successful on his second attempt, blowing Ultra Magnus to pieces and stealing the Matrix for himself.

Galvatron, desiring freedom from Unicron, attempted to wield the Matrix against his master. Unfortunately, he was not capable of opening the device and was promptly eaten. Enraged by his servant's behavior, Unicron transformed to robot mode and swore to destroy all of Cybertron in retaliation. Shockwave quickly ordered all Decepticons to engage in a counterattack on their foe, though their firepower proved ineffective.

The Autobots, both those who had been stranded on Quintessa and on Junk, arrived to aid in defending Cybertron, joining forces with the Decepticons in battle. Several Autobots invaded Unicron by flying their ship through his eye, though were met by his inner defenses. The Autobot Hot Rod became separated from his teammates and ran afoul of Galvatron (still carrying the Matrix). Galvatron initially asked for Hot Rod's aid in destroying their common foe, but still under Unicron's control, was forced to fight his would-be-comrade, instead.

The battle continued until Hot Rod removed the Matrix from Galvatron's possession, transforming himself into Rodimus Prime. Throwing Galvatron into deep space, Rodimus Prime then opened the Matrix, causing a devastating chain reaction within Unicron's body. Rodimus and the other Autobots escaped just as Unicron's body exploded, with only his head left to sightlessly orbit Cybertron. The Transformers: The Movie

Following the end of the Unicron War, the Decepticons, who had previously been in control of Cybertron, were driven from the planet by the Autobots. The Decepticons would eventually seek asylum on planet Chaar. Five Faces of Darkness, Part 1

Galvatron would eventually crash-land into a plasma pit on the planet Thrull. Five Faces of Darkness, Part 2

Unicron's head would continue to orbit Cybertron for many years, causing various sorts of trouble. Ghost in the Machine Grimlock's New Brain

Beast Wars Neo cartoon

The energy released by his destruction would be known as Angolmois energy. It would eventually be used to resurrect the planet-eater, who would make a second attempt to destroy Cybertron many hundreds of years later. Unicron Revived!?

Marvel Comics continuity

Marvel The Transformers comics

After Primus had inadvertently been awakened, Unicron became aware of his brother's location and set course to finish their duel. The Primal Scream The Transformers scrambled to find the lost Creation Matrix to destroy the Chaos Bringer, Bird of Prey! A group of Autobots tracked down the talisman to the moon of VsQs where they found that the Matrix had developed sentience without a host and encounters with alien lifeforms had turned it evil. As such, the Matrix latched onto Thunderwing, Dark Creation forcing the Autobots to send it adrift once again leaving them with no defence against the coming of Unicron. All Fall Down

A temporally displaced Galvatron knew however that Unicron could also be felled if all Transformers were united as one and convinced Primus to recall all his creations back home. Out of Time! After the Transformers had dealt with the Acolyte of Unicrons, Unicron himself arrived. The Void

The sheer size of the Chaos Bringer threw the Transformers into a panicked frenzy requiring Galvatron to mount a lone attack to rally his people into battle. In spite of this unity, Unicron still murdered millions of Transformers, even banishing Primus from the physical plane, before the corrupted Matrix returned and attempted to destroy Unicron. Bereft of its virtuous nature however, it was no threat to the Chaos Bringer who swatted it aside with ease.

After that, Unicron decided to simply devour Cybertron in planetary mode before G.B. Blackrock managed to rally Circuit Breaker into unleashing her full power on the Chaos Bringer temporarily stunning him. This bought Optimus Prime the time he needed to purify the Matrix and open it within Unicron destroying the dark god. On the Edge of Extinction!

Though Unicron was vanquished, it had seemed he was ultimately victorious as Cybertron threatened to tear itself apart in a series of planetary quakes. Still Life! It was later revealed however that the Matrix had sacrificed itself to destroy Unicron and had released a wave of healing energy onto Cybertron, the quakes being a side-effect that were eventually quelled by the Last Autobot, a contingency Primus had placed in the event he was banished during Unicron's attack. End of the Road!

Classics

Classics continues from the Marvel US series, and does not include the UK stories or any subsequently published stories.

In 2012 when facing off against his negative polarity counterpart, Octopunch boasted that he had survived the Unicron War. Invasion

Regeneration One

Though he was resurrected after destroying Unicron, Optimus Prime carried lingering trauma from the Unicron War. Even twenty-one years later, he was still haunted by visions of the Chaos Bringer returning. Loose Ends, Part 1 This trauma snowballed into an aggressive form of pacifism with Optimus adamantly refusing to believe the Decepticons were returning, confident that the Unicron War had been the end of the Great War. Counterpoint

Ask Vector Prime

In a hybrid universe created by the machinations of Sideways and Gong, the Unicron War incorporated the GoBots. After a few quantum destabilizations—first pitting the Autobots against the Renegades, and later the Decepticons against the Guardians—the reality coalesced into an amalgamated universe that incorporated both GoBots and Transformers. In this strange timeline, Leader-1 perished at the hands of Megatron, passing the Guardian Matrix of Leadership on to Major Mo. Unicron reformatted Megatron into Galvatron to seize the Matrix, with Fracture and Deadlift in place of Cyclonus and Scourge.

Kup, Hot Rod, and the Dinobots crashed on Antares III, where they battled Master Renegade and his Monster GoBots, while Springer, Arcee, and Major Mo encountered and allied with the Rock Lords on Quartex.

During Unicron's final assault on Cybertron, Vector Prime managed to intervene from behind the scenes. The two universes were set back on their correct courses, allowing Hot Rod to open the Autobot Matrix of Leadership and save the day. Echoes and Fragments

Beast Wars: Uprising

Unicron attacked Cybertron during the height of the Great War. Autobots, Decepticons and even Neutrals came together to defeat the Chaos Bringer but thousands upon thousands of them perished under his heel. With the Matrix lost to the Cybertronians, Unicron was brought down through the actions of a select few. The scientist Deluge took note of this fact and endeavoured to create additional Point One Percenters in the future. Peace reigned for a time following the Chaos Bringer's destruction before the war inevitably restarted, more violent than ever.

By the 24th century, information creep had caused memories of the attack to become distorted, some doubting Unicron had ever even existed. The Inexorable March

Notes

• In Japan, the term "Unicron War" was coined by the writers of the Transformers 2010 story pages (most likely by Masumi Kaneda) as a means to describe the events of The Transformers: The Movie, which would not be released in Japan until 1989. With the events of the Unicron War being referred to extensively but never seen, it gained a mysterious and almost legendary quality, both among the characters in the series and the audience observing the fiction. The term was also used in multiple episodes of the Transformers 2010 dub, often by the narrator at the start of episodes like Five Faces of Darkness, Part 2 and in Secret Files of Teletraan II segments, and is still used in Japanese fiction to refer to the conflict to this day.

Foreign names

• Japanese: Unicron Sensō (ユニクロン戦争, "Unicron War")