Decepticon

This article is about the Transformers faction. For the Robots in Disguise episode, see The Decepticons.

File:Decept.gif

The original Decepticon symbol.

Decepticon (di-sep-ti-con ) n. A member of a subversive sect or society. From the noun — 'decepticon'; one who deceives.

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The Decepticons are a malevolent race of robot warriors, brutal and merciless. The Decepticons are led by a single undeviating goal; total domination of the universe.Narrator in the Secret Files of Tele-traan 2

The Decepticons are one of the primary factions in the Transformers mythos. They are typically concerned with such things as amassing large quantities of energon, developing powerful weaponry, galactic conquest, and beating people up. Not necessarily in that order.

They are "the bad guys" in most Transformers stories.

Japanese name: Destrons

Italian name: Distructors

Hungarian name: Álcák ("Disguises") -- Robotikák in the Energon and Cybertron series.

Generation 1

In the various continuities descending from Generation 1, the Decepticons and the Autobots are the two great powers in the Transformer population. The factions, however, are not a complete set -- there are Transformers who are unaffiliated / neutral, or even members of smaller or splinter factions.

Many G1 timelines actually credit Megatron as the founder of the Decepticons, not merely its most recent leader. In contrast, Optimus Prime is almost always depicted as only the latest in a long line of Primes or Matrix Bearers.

Eventually, the Decepticons managed to take control of all of Cybertron, forcing the Autobots to operate on Cybertron's two moons, but Autobot City on Earth was viewed as the greater threat. The Decepticons overtook a supply shuttle and launched an attack, with disasterous consequences for the Autobots. The battle saw one of the Decepticons long held dreams achieved in the death of Optimus Prime, but Megatron was damaged, and left to rot in deep space. Unicron reformatted him into Galvatron, and Galvatron attempted to enslave Unicron with the Matrix of Leadership. When Unicron attacked Cybertron, most of the Decepticon forces on the planet were wiped out, allowing the Autobots to retake control of the planet. Eventually, the Autobots, led by a resurrected Optimus Prime, managed to finally defeat the Decepticons. Both sides signed the Pax Cybertronia, which eventually led to peace, but left the Decepticons in a second class position.

Beast Era

In Beast Wars continuity, the Predacons were the descendants of the Decepticons and fought with the same aggression and ideas of conquest. They faced the Maximals in the same way their ancestors had fought the Autobots.

Robots in Disguise

In the Robots in Disguise cartoon, the Decepticons were a brand new faction that came into being during the events of the story. Because there were so few Decepticons (only six or seven), and because they were a subset of the Predacon antagonists, they can almost be viewed as a subgroup rather than a proper faction. The RiD Decepticons were created on Earth when Megatron's forces captured a set of stasis pods from an ancient Transformer spaceship that had been found on Earth, leading to the birth of the Commandos and Scourge. The toy version of Galvatron was also labeled as a Decepticon, although this "change" in the character's faction was not established in the cartoon series.

In the Japanese version of RiD, Car Robots, the Decepticons were known as Combatrons. This is the same name by which the G1 Combaticons were called in Japan.

For the Hasbro toy line, several other non-show Decepticons were added to the ranks to help fill out the line. It is unknown how most of these actually fit into the story, though one of them, Axer, is actually a dimension-hopper who arrived from the Generation 1 universe.

Unicron Trilogy

Animated continuity

Armada

The exact origins of the Decepticon faction is a bit muddled. It is widely assumed, though never directly confirmed, that the movement was founded by Megatron. Also, the enslavement of the power-enhancing Mini-Cons is considered to be the impetus to the Decepticons' rise to a massive multi-planet-spanning army, though at what point in the war this occurred is unclear; it's possible the Mini-Cons' arrival was what gave Megatron the opportunity to rise to power, or that they arrived after the war had already begun.

Either way, the Mini-Cons fueled the war machine for centuries, and the war with the Autobots soon spread from Cybertron to other worlds. The self-imposed exile of the Mini-Cons to an unknown destination was seen as a major setback for the Decepticons (and something of a pyrrhic victory for the Autobots), but despite this, the war continued, as both sides had amassed a large enough power base to continue on without the little buggers.

The Autobots and Decepticons seemed to fight to a stalemate, neither able to gain a distinct advantage over the other. When a signal reached Cybertron centuries later that the Mini-Cons had landed on Earth, it seems neither side was capable of sending a full force to retrieve them, despite the power they contained. Though the Decepticon force sent to Earth was small in numbers, it was far from insignificant; Megatron himself led the squad, backed by some of his most trusted warriors.

When Megatron returned to Cybertron, the overwhelming majority of the Mini-Cons were in the protective custody of the Autobots, but Megatron was unfazed; he had assembled the Mini-Cons required to make the three legendary weapons the Star Saber, Skyboom Shield and Requiem Blaster. Bolstered by this new power and the apparent death of Optimus Prime, Megatron attempted to take Cybertron once and for all.

But Megatron's return to Cybertron was the beginning of the end of the Decepticon army. When Unicron revealed himself as a threat to both armies, fueled by the negative psychic energies from centuries of death and destruction, the two sides eventually joined together to beat back the planet-eater. Despite the truce, Megatron and Prime engaged in a brutal duel on the surface of the weakened Unicron after the three legendary weapons had been removed from his core. Realizing their battle was keeping Unicron active, Megatron sacrificed himself, and both Unicron and Megatron disappeared into nothingness.

Energon

File:169942-150x500.jpg

Another Decepticon symbol, most common in the Unicron trilogy.

Megatron's final orders to his troops still stood: work with the Autobots. The Decepticons maintained a degree of autonomy, still wearing the faction sigil and often taking military/defensive positions in the growing number of energon-mining colonies, but they were ultimately answerable to Optimus Prime and the Autobots. There were, of course, dissenters, most of which were captured and imprisoned. For a decade, Autobot and Decepticon worked side-by-side in a somewhat stable truce.

Both sides found themselves the target of attacks from Unicron again; hordes of Terrorcon drones, sent by Alpha Quintesson to steal energon ore with which to revive the now-shattered husk of Unicron. What the alien did not count on was that Megatron's spark had survived within the remains, and was siphoning energon from Unicron's body. Soon the Decepticon leader had revived himself in a new form, drove off Alpha Quintesson, and along with an elite cadre of soldiers and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of mindless Terrorcon drones, began his new plans for conquest.

When news of Megatron's return reached Cybertron, hundreds of Decepticons rose up and rebelled, eager to get back to conquering. But having been joined to Unicon for so long apparently had given Megatron a taste of godhood; he had no more interest in amassing a galaxy-spanning army of troops. Countless Decepticons died in the resulting battles, with Megatron more than willing to sacrifice them without a thought to attain ultimate power for himself. As the "Powerlinx Battles" -as they came to be called- came to their climax, Megatron found that his actions and thoughts were being influenced and controlled by the dark spark of Unicron. Unwilling to let Unicron stand in his way, Megatron ultimately sacrificed himself (again) and seemingly destroyed Unicron's spark by plunging himself into a newly-formed energon sun created by Primus.

Cybertron

What little remained of the once-mighty Decepticon army after Megatron's loss was at best a loose association of criminals, thugs, and lunatics, with no real political or military power to speak of. For a decade, Cybertron was once again at peace, with the population overwhelmingly Autobot or neutral. The Transformers had withdrawn from Earth and its other colonies to focus on revitalizing their homeworld after the devastation of the Powerlinx Battles. However, two great catastrophes shattered this peace; the energon sun collapsed in on itself, forming the powerful black hole known as the Unicron Singularity, which threatened to devour Cybertron and, if left unchecked, the entire universe... and the return yet once again of Megatron, who had absorbed much of what remained of Unicron's power.

Megatron's goal of attaining godhood was now at hand. By obtaining the legendary Omega Lock and the four Cyber Planet Keys, Megatron intended to accelerate the growth of the black hole, consuming the universe in a vast sea of nothingness that only he would survive, then use his powers to re-create the universe in his image.

To this end, he had no need of an army. He gathered a small group of allies and lackeys to seek the items he needed, but they were nothing more than pawns to him, to be used and discarded at a whim.

The Decepticons briefly regained their status as a mass army of individuals when Starscream, who had long suffered at Megatron's hands since the beginning of the Decepticons, made his own bid for ultimate power with the help of the Planet X agent Sideways. Having sealed Megatron and his troops in a trap, Starscream freed hundreds of criminal Transformers who had been locked up on Earth for millennia, and formed his own globe-spanning army. The Decepticon "Monsters" were tasked with finding the Omega Lock and Earth's Cyber Planet Key, which they eventually brought to their leader. However, numerous Decepticons were killed in the battles with the Autobots, and it soon became apparent that Starscream, like Megatron before him, didn't care. Most of these criminals soon abandoned Starscream and went into hiding.

As for Megatron, he too had deserters among his own considerably-small ranks. Most notably, the powerful Scourge, leader of the Jungle Planet and the colossal Menasor from Gigantion, both of whom eventually joined forces with their former enemies the Autobots.

This was not seen as a concern for Megatron, however, as by this time Starscream and his allies were seemingly destroyed on Gigantion, and Megatron (now calling himself "Galvatron" again) had the Omega Lock and all four Keys. What few Decepticons remained loyal to him were too stupid to see what Galvatron had planned, and made perfect distractions as he set his final plan in motion. If they weren't strong enough to survive the coming cataclysm, then so be it.

The yutz, the ditz, the klutz, and the putz.

Ultimately, Galvatron's plan failed, and the Unicron Singularity was sealed. His remaining Decepticons quickly left him, realizing what was likely to have happened to them, and eventually joined the Autobots. After Galvatron's seemingly-final defeat and death in a one-on-one duel with Optimus Prime on Cybertron's moon, the Decepticons, not knowing when to quit, rose again, albeit in a rather pathetic fashion. Having cobbled together a rather rickety rocket, Ransack, Crumplezone and Thunderblast shanghaied the reluctant Thundercracker, who was really keen on being on the winning side for once, and flew off to parts unknown as the New Decepticon "Army".

They made it to Mars before the rocket crash-landed.

Meanwhile, the Autobot Wing Saber reported form a deep-space recon mission that he thought he had picked up traces of Starscream, seemingly backed up by Sideways and Soundwave. Landmine and the former Decepticon Mudflap raced off to join Wing Saber and investigate...

(Note: During the closing credits montage of the final episode, a Galvatron-esque figure is seen sparring off with the now-deceased Vector Prime. What this means for the Decepticon army is unknown.)

Movie

The Decepticons are the Transformers who sided with Lord High Protector Megatron and attempted to seize the AllSpark. There numbers ranged from the fanatical, the violent, and the fanatically violent. The Decepticons overwhelmed the valiant yet peaceful Autobots, and Optimus Prime made the desperate decision to launch the AllSpark into deep space. Megatron obsessively followed after it, and disappeared. Starscream took over leadership, and began a search for Megatron and the AllSpark. After a while, Starscream began to focus more on the AllSpark, hoping Megatron would remain lost, something the other Decepticons began to suspect.

The Decepticons are, in general, less human in appearance than the Autobots in movie. Also, with the exception of Megatron and Starscream, all movie Decepticons have four optics, giving them decidely bug-like eyes.

Transformers Animated

The Decepticons always appear in every universe and will be renewed as Animated characters but first of all only two confirmed. Megatron the always a military vehicle and or jet not car leader and Starscream a long time popular villian that only turns into a American Air Superiority Jet or Cybertronian Jet.

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