Vigilem

Vigilem is a Titan from the Generation 1 continuity family.

Attack of Titan.

Prideful, treacherous, and awesomely powerful, Vigilem hails from a bygone era of Cybertron's history. A Titan from the era of the Thirteen Tribes and the First Cybertronian Civil War, Vigilem's loyalty to his master Liege Maximo supersedes all other desires, even his own sense of self-preservation. Though a warrior first and foremost, bristling with weaponry, Vigilem also takes after his leader, whispering poison into the ears of those who approach him unguarded. If they don't fall for his lies, however, his formidable arsenal might make them reconsider accepting his duplicitous promises.

Though millennia of exile as the living prison Carcer have eaten away at his mind and body, Vigilem remains as proud and wrathful as ever, yearning to strike down his ancient nemesis Metroplex and extinguish the Spark of the 'bot responsible for his long banishment.

I had hoped that you would be just another piece of our sordid history, painted over and left to rust away beneath. But you were never one to make things easy.Metroplex, "Rubicon"

Fiction

2005 IDW continuity

First appearance: Windblade vol. 2 #3

On trial for violating the Building Code.

During the era of the Thirteen, Vigilem was the loyal Titan of Liege Maximo. Rubicon His master, however, came to believe that lies could be more powerful than the truth, Heavy and formed an alliance with the resentful Megatronus to overthrow their leader Prima. When their treachery was laid bare—Solus Prime killed by their machinations—Liege Maximo was captured by his fellow Primes, The First Who Was Named just as Vigilem was subdued by his brethren. Rubicon

At Onyx Prime's insistence, Liege Maximo was imprisoned within his own Titan and the two of them were permanently banished from the planet. In order to ensure that Vigilem would remain a suitable prison, Onyx Prime stripped him of his higher functions using a surgical technique that would form the basis for shadowplay—as "Onyx Prime" was a false identity constructed by a time-travelling Shockwave, who had once been subjected to a similar process. The First Who Was Named Permanently transformed into his starship mode, his brain module shut down, and the Liege Maximo entombed within his body, unable to escape, the remaining Titans decided that they would henceforth refer to their exiled brother as "Carcer": a nomadic, living prison for the Liege Maximo. Several repentant members of Maximo's tribe served as Carcer's crew, pledging to keep Liege Maximo forever imprisoned inside the inert Titan. Rubicon The straitened inhabitants learned to value three things above all else: efficiency, security, and truth. The Will of the Few

In spite of the Titans' efforts to purge Vigilem's name from memory, some evidence of him and his actions remained in the historical records. The colonists of Caminus remembered Vigilem as an example of how not all Titans were pure of Spark. Informed

All he's missing is a "I brake for no one." bumper sticker.

As Carcer travelled through space over the eons, a core breach threatened the integrity of the ship. The Titan's captain threw his body into the breach to seal it, beginning a tradition where the crew would sacrifice their own bodies to keep their Titan alive as his natural resources diminished. Eventually, Elita One became captain and "First One", ruling from a chair composed of the bodies of their colony's greatest heroes—all of whom had given their lives in the service of their ship. Rubicon The Will of the Few Some 600,000 years ago, Shockwave launched one of his Regenesis ores at Carcer, with the missile carrying a "seed" of Ore-10. Ceremony By the 21st century, Carcer's original body had become a hodgepodge of mismatched parts. Rubicon The Will of the Few

After returning to Cybertron circa 2014, Metroplex located several of his Titan brethren scattered throughout the stars. A Long Way Down Among them was Vigilem, whose Spacebridge read to Metroplex's sensors as his lost brother Tempo. The Will of the Few When Cityspeaker Windblade merged with Metroplex's brain, she saw the name "Carcer" in Metroplex's consciousness. Windblade, who had never heard of such a Titan, asked Metroplex for more information, but Metroplex hid the truth from by claiming that Carcer was a different Titan from either Tempo or Vigilem. The Will of the Few Rubicon

During their climatic battle, Devastator kicked Optimus Maximus through Metroplex's spacebridge and onto Carcer's hull, although Optimus quickly rebounded and dived back through to Cybertron. All That Remains

Hoping to convince the inhabitants of "Tempo" to join the Council of Worlds, Chancellor Starscream and Cityspeaker Windblade used Metroplex's Spacebridge to reestablish contact with what they thought was a ship of peaceful philosophers. They were surprised to find a crew of militaristic colonists who identified their Titan as "Carcer". Elita One fudged the situation by lying that they had simply renamed their ship along the way; Windblade was aware that Elita was lying through her teeth and was concerned with what the First One must be hiding. After some political wrangling, the two ambassadors were nevertheless able to convince Carcer to join the Council of Worlds; they chose to send Strika and Obsidian as ambassadors. The Will of the Few

The Carcerians took the opportunity to order replacements parts for some of their ship's more worn out systems. 07:00:00

When Windblade proposed a mental merge with Metrotitan, Pyra Magna brought up Vigilem to remind her that Metrotitan might have ulterior motives. Informed

Shortly afterwards, a horde of zombie Titans, raised by Sentinel Prime in order to raze Cybertron, began showing up on Carcer's sensors, Lancer and Greenlight reported the news to Elita One. As the Titans began arriving on Cybertron, Strika lead Carcer's crew in a valiant battle to defend Cybertron, admonishing them that they could not let the Titans take their ship for fear of releasing the Liege Maximo. As the battle wore on, Metroplex was overwhelmed by his zombified brethren, prompting Starscream to contact Elita and ask for her help. Starscream explained that he needed Carcer on the ground to help Metroplex; Elita politely refused, wished Starscream well, and shut off her comm line. Ping

Repeated entreaties to get Carcer to transform didn't go any better. Windblade, Starscream, and several Council delegates talked things over, and Windblade came up with a desperate, last ditch plan: the group would invade Carcer, under cover, and Windblade would merge with him and explain the situation in hopes that he'd take it upon himself to transform and defend Cybertron. To cover Windblade's approach, the remaining ships in orbit were directed to attack Carcer directly, and Devastator was deployed to draw the bulk of the Carcerians' troops, giving Windblade and her team a hopefully clearer path to Carcer's brain chamber. Desperate Times A running battle ensued as Windblade and her team struggled to elude Obsidian and Elita One. Windblade managed to establish a cityspeaker link with Carcer's brain module... only to discover that she had awakened Vigilem! Desperate Measures

Vigilem? I hardly knew 'em!

Vigilem's systems began rebooting, and Windblade realized that he was trying to reawaken. Unable to force the evil Titan back into his slumber, she did the unthinkable by taking physical control of Vigilem's body, shrugging off his whispered persuasions to join him. Windblade succeeded in maneuvering Vigilem's patchwork body onto Cybertron, where she engaged the zombie hordes. The dual strain of trying to fight off the Titan army and hold off Vigilem's mental manipulations proved too much, and Vigilem's consciousness quickly reasserted itself over his body once more, then moving onto Windblade's own mind. Spying Metroplex, Vigilem decided to kill the Titan he blamed for his imprisonment, mockingly declaring that the last thing the First Titan would see would be the return of the Liege Maximo, and began shifting his internal architecture to unlock his ancient prison. It was then that Elita One arrived in Vigilem's brain chamber. Announcing that she had sworn an oath to never let Vigilem or Liege Maximo walk free, she emptied her weapon into Vigilem's brain module, Rubicon who quickly downloaded his mind into Windblade's own, the influx of data sending the cityspeaker into stasis lock. If I Know You While Elita had destroyed the brain module, which caused the Titan's body to collapse, she had arrived too late to prevent her ship from disgorging its prisoner. The Liege Maximo emerged, thanking Vigilem for his loyalty. Before he teleported away, he vowed that he would avenge his imprisonment and his Titan's death. Rubicon

Vigilem's corpse was subsequently cannibalized for parts before transforming back into its starship form, though Elita noted it would be years before their ship would be able to leave Cybertron's orbit. Heavy

When Windblade was brought to a hospital, a doctor determined that Vigilem had jumped into Windblade's body. Unable to distinguish between the two brain patterns, he requested Starscream bring in a mnemosurgeon who refused. After suffering from a crisis of conscience, Starscream went to consult Airachnid, who correctly deduced that Vigilem could only be destroyed if a third bot entered Windblade's mind to help disentangle her mind from the Titan's.

I. WANT. MY. OWN. TOY!

Within their shared mindspace, Vigilem tried to convince Windblade to merge their Sparks so they could both survive, offering his wealth of knowledge about manipulation and ancient Cybertron as extra incentive so that Windblade could bring Cybertron to true peace. As the two clashed, Vigilem said he had no intention of using Windblade to possess Metroplex and examined the cityspeaker's memories to show that despite her initial optimism about the world, she had made countless morally grey choices and told lies. Vigilem then asked, had Windblade compromised her ideals or had she just come to understand how the world truly worked? If I Know You

Windblade and Vigilem continued to battle against one another for control of the body until Starscream—patched into Windblade's mind with the help of Airachnid—arrived to help the beleaguered Cityspeaker. Unfortunately for Starscream, Vigilem recognized that Starscream's mind offered another way to escape his new prison. Transforming into a vision of Megatron to paralyze Starscream with fear, Vigilem leapt into Starscream's mind and began attacking Starscream, ripping away at his mental projection until finally exposing his spark. Convinced that he had defeated his foe, Vigilem began to overwrite Starscream's mind... unaware that Windblade had rescued Starscream's spark. Manifesting a replica of Solus Prime's old hammer, Windblade "forged" Starscream's spark and created a spectral army—all based off significant figures in Starscream's life—to slow down Vigilem.

No, not into the pit! It buuuuuurns!

Battling the ghosts of Starscream's past, Vigilem was weighed down by the ghostly army, buying just enough time to complete her work and forge Starscream into a towering, resplendent form; the true form that his Spark was always meant to take. With one footfall, Starscream crushed the cowering Titan underfoot and banished him back into Windblade's mind. Realizing the key to defeating Vigilem, Windblade once more assumed a gigantic form and shoved the weakened Titan into her own spark chamber. Just as the forge of Starscream's spark burned away everything, revealing his innermost truth, Windblade turned her spectral spark into a forge to burn away Vigilem. His duplicitous nature finally laid bare, Windblade found no truth in the spark of the villainous Titan. Vigilem's mind was swiftly burned away to nothing, finally ending his life and allowing Windblade to return to the waking world. Your First Mistake

Though his spark was destroyed, Vigilem's body was converted back to starship form and reassumed its orbit above Cybertron once again as "Carcer". After human terrorists had attacked Iacon, Elita called for reinforcements from Carcer only for the Solstar Order to arrive and bar the Carcerians from teleporting in troops. First Strike #2

After becoming a candidate in the Cybertronian elections, Windblade confessed to Metroplex that she feared her desire to rule Cybertron might be a remnant of Vigilem's personality lingering in her mind. Metroplex said Vigilem had listened to no one but Liege Maximo and if Windblade listened to and helped others, she would know herself to be free from Vigilem's influence. The Chosen One

When Nemesis returned to Cybertron with its crew proving hostile, Elita One suggested turning Carcer on the evil Titan only to be overruled on account of the poor luck Metrotitan had had against Nemesis. Endless Forever

As Unicron began devouring the galaxy, Carcer remained in Cybertronian orbit. After Caminus fell, Optimus Prime noted that Earth and Carcer were the only colonies left between the Chaos Bringer and Cybertron. A quick count by Bumblebee however highlighted that that only accounted for twelve of the thirteen colonies. Last Stand

Once Unicron began his assault on Cybertron, Carcer served as the impromptu flagship of the Cybertronian defense, with the intention to unleash Victorion within the monster's innards. While the Carcerians managed to deploy their weapon, they soon came under heavy fire from Bludgeon's Worldsweeper. With the ship falling apart at the seams, Elita One ordered her craft to ram Unicron only for the Chaos Bringer to casually incinerate the ship with an optic attack. Our Finest

"Full emergency power to the engines. Ram the Blade Ship."

Considering Carcer destroyed, Unicron turned his attention to the rest of the Cybertronian fleet. However, Carcer had in fact survived the blast with most of his control system intact. Elita made her way back to the bridge and reassumed the helm just as the magic of the Spectral Knights began to teleport the Cybertronian populace. Unicron attempted to destroy the rest of the fleet before they could be evacuated, but was interrupted when Elita defiantly rammed Carcer into his face, destroying both Carcer and herself but giving the fleet a little extra time—just enough for the magic to reach them and teleport them to safety. Road's End

Beast Wars: Uprising

The Book of Logos identified two of seven colonies as those of "Vigilem" and "Carcer". Book of Logos

2019 IDW Continuity

Using his Cityspeaker abilities, Skystalker roused Vigilem from his slumber, who gradually came back online, ready to carry out his new orders. The Change In Your Nature Part Four

Notes

See that? That's millions of years of taking the stairs instead of the elevator.

• "Vigilem" is the first-person singular present active subjunctive (whew!) form of the Latin verb "vigilar", meaning "to watch over"... and he and his crew certainly did "watch over" Liege Maximo for who knows how long!
  • Sorry, Classical Latin aficionados, but according to Mairghread Scott, the name is pronounced as an English speaker would expect, like the word "vigilant".
• "Carcer", meanwhile, is Latin for "prison": a fitting name, as he was indeed a prison for the Liege Maximo as well as a prisoner in his own body.
• The "Book of Logos" was written prior to the revelation that "Carcer" was merely an alternate name for Vigilem, hence why it treats the two names separately and does not perfectly mirror the IDW continuity.
• Backmatter in Unicron #6 series implies that Carcer carried the tenth of Shockwave's Regenesis ores, though how exactly this works, what with him not being a planet and all, is not expounded on.

References

	Regenesis worlds
LV-117 Gorlam Prime Prion Caminus Devisiun Arduria Antilla Tsiehshi Velocitron Carcer Eukaris Elonia Earth Cybertron