Help:Franchise identifiers

The terminology used on this Wiki to refer to each "era" of Transformers is as follows. Note that these are franchise or more crudely "toyline" distinctions, not continuity distinctions.

New series identifiers will be added as needed, after being agreed upon by a consensus of users.

Many objects, ideas, or entities will have articles which apply in whole or in part to many continuities, sometimes even across continuity family boundaries. Examples include energon and Vector Sigma. In general, these entries should be inclusive of all relevant continuities, discussing their commonalities first, followed by details of each in turn. It is not neccessary to have separate articles for Vector Sigma's G1 and BM incarnations, for example. In fact, the entry is better served by incorporating and synthesizing as much information as possible. Such inclusive articles, obviously, do not need a continuity signifier in their title.

US franchises

• Generation 1, abbreviated G1.
  • This includes most Transformers material produced worldwide between 1984 and 1992.
  • This also includes the newer "Generation 1" comics from companies such as Dreamwave and IDW, as well as G1 toy reissues and any new characters introduced by those stories or toys, such as Sunstorm and the G1 GoBots.
  • Although Alternators and Robot Masters are part of the Generation 1 continuity family, they are new franchises within that continuity and as such are labelled differently.

• Generation 2, abbreviated G2.
  • For the purposes of this Wiki, the Generation 2 television series is treated as no different than the G1 series.
  • Includes BotCon 1994 exclusive toy Breakdown, although the character is the same as G1 Breakdown.

• Beast Wars, abbreviated BW.
  • Excludes the Animorphs subline, but includes Mutants.
  • Includes all BotCon exclusive toys from 1995-2001, except for Apelinq. BotCon-original characters from this time period are considered BW characters -- despite being later incorporated into Universe -- because they originated with toys and stories that were branded as Beast Wars.

• Machine Wars, abbreviated MW.

• Beast Machines, abbreviated BM.
  • Includes the first (non-Wal*Mart exclusive) Dinobots subline.
  • Includes BotCon 2002 exclusive toy/character Apelinq.

• Robots in Disguise, abbreviated RID.
  • Includes the "main" RID line as well as a variety of redecoes that were released under the same brand name after the main line ended.

• Universe, not abbreviated.
  • As well as the widely-available redeco line, this includes BotCon/OTFCC exclusives from 2002-2004. (The name first appeared in 2002 as "Expanded Universe".)
  • The fandom often uses the abbreviation "TFU" for this line, but it is this Wiki's policy not to abbreviate one-word franchise names in article titles. "TFU" is acceptable within the text of articles, but not in their titles.

• Dinobots, the Wal*Mart exclusive mini-line, not abbreviated.

• Armada, not abbreviated.

• Energon, not abbreviated.

• Cybertron, not abbreviated.
  • Includes the comic story published in Fun Publications' fan club magazine from issue 1 (Feb/Mar 05) through 12 (Dec06/Jan07), as indicated by the logo at beginning of each story.

• Unicron Trilogy, abbreviated UT.
  • This is a meta-franchise encompassing the above three franchises (Armada, Energon, and Cybertron). Article titles should generally not be disambiguated as "UT" but instead by the subject's specific franchise of origin. "UT" is acceptable within the text of articles, but not in their titles.

• Timelines, not abbreviated.
  • Includes BotCon material (both toys and fiction) starting in 2005 and going forward.

• Alternators, not abbreviated.
  • Binaltech story material and Binaltech-exclusive toys are not part of Alternators.

• Classics, not abbreviated.
  • Includes all toys released in Classics-style packaging, even if the word "classics" does not appear on that packaging. For example, the Magnus/Skywarp "Battle for Autobot City" versus set is included here.
  • Includes the comic story published in Fun Publications' fan club magazine from issue 13 (Feb/Mar07) and ongoing, as indicated by the logo at beginning of each story.

• Movie, not abbreviated.
  • The franchise surrounding the 2007 live-action movie.

• Animated, not abbreviated.
  • Franchise with a new visual style starting in 2008.

• 1-2-3 Transformers and Go-Bots / Go-Go-Go-Bots.
  • The former can be abbreviated as 123, the latter should simply be called "Go-Bots".

• Revenge of the Fallen, abbreviated ROTF.

Japanese-exclusive franchises

Note that the first six items on the following list -- everything up to the first Beast Wars franchise -- are in some sense a part of Generation 1. The term "Generation 1" is used to refer to several things in the fandom, including the origianl franchise, a continuity family, and also the grouping of all Transformers franchises until the advent of Generation 2. Masterforce, for example, is not part of the franchise called G1, but it is part of a historical and continuity-based grouping which is also called G1.

To make things slightly more complicated, the American G1 franchise was presented in Japan as two separate franchises: Transformers and Transformers: 2010.

• Headmasters, not abbreviated.

• Super-God Masterforce, shortened to Masterforce.

• Victory, not abbreviated.

• Zone, not abbreviated.

• Return of Convoy, abbreviated ROC.

• Operation Combination, abbreviated OC.

• Beast Wars II, abbreviated BWII.

• Beast Wars Neo, abbreviated BWN.

• Robot Masters, abbreviated RM.

• Binaltech, abbreviated BT.
  • Includes Binaltech Asterisk.
  • Because of the English-centric focus of this Wiki, material or toys which are common to both Binaltech and Alternators should be considered "Alternators". There are a lot of BT-exclusive characters and fiction, however, which would not be properly labelled as part of Alternators.

• Kiss Players, abbreviated KP.