Ark (G1)

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

Hurry up and get on, will ya? The flood's starting.

The Ark is the name given to the Autobot spaceship that, in most versions of the Generation 1 story, originally carried Autobot and Decepticon troops to Earth.

The Ark is a Vanguard-class Deep Space Interceptor. It has 5 Decks and houses a full crew complement of 300 Transformers. (Although it can be flown by only a handful if necessary.) Its environment is fully-automated and self-sufficient. For engines it features 4 Hyperfuel Intake Accelerators.

It is armed with 16 particle-combustion canons (port), 16 laser emitters (starboard), a primary starfield missile launcher, and an Overshock sonic battery.

Fiction

G1 animated continuity

The Ark's launch in the first episode of Transformers, 'More than Meets the Eye Part 1', first aired in 1984. An unseen bumpersticker reads: "Primus is my copilot".

The Autobot ship in the G1 cartoon is never actually named. Fans have generally called it The Ark however, borrowing the name from its Comic counterpart.

The cartoon version of the ship tends to have a more rounded ovoid look to it and is a goldish-yellow color. It has a main computer designated Teletraan I.

Other Vanguard-class ships, pretty much identical to the Ark, are seen taking refugees from Cybertron on a history tape in Desertion of the Dinobots. It is suspected that the settlers of known Autobot colonies such as Junkion were among these.

The Ark was launched under the command of Optimus Prime to search for fuel but ran afoul of two colliding asteroids. Then the Decepticon ship attacked, and the Decepticons under Megatron boarded it. Out of control, the Ark crashed to Earth, smashing into a volcano in what would eventually become a desert. The exact location is unknown, but closely resembled the American southwest. There it rested until a volcanic eruption four million years later reactivated it and its inhabitants. From that point (1984 AD) on the Ark served as the Autobots' base of operations until the construction of Autobot City sometime before 2005 AD.

Doooo Dooooooo DOOTDOOTDOOT DOOOOOO!

The Ark's crew consisted of all the 1984 Autobots. A vehicle resembling Grapple's alt-mode and called Hauler is also seen shortly after the Autobots revived on Earth and may represent another crew member. (It is speculated by some fans that a number of the 1985 Autobots may have been aboard the Ark as well, as they suffer the effects of Cybertonium depletion at the exact same time as those that left the planet aboard her. It is possible they were crew members of the ship as well but were not recovered or repaired until later on in the show.)

In 2006 (2010 in the Japanese version), the Ark and Teletraan I are destroyed by Trypticon, much to the chagrin of the minibots who were assigned to protect it.

( In the second issue of the Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformer manga, the Autobot Headquarters is said to be located in Arizona. The manga acted as a supplement to the television series. Whether this pertains to the US version of the show is debatable.)

Marvel Comics continuity

The Ark as it first appeared in the Marvel Comics...

The comic version of the ship tends to have a more squared-off look to it and is frequently (though not always) shown as being a metallic silver. It has a main computer designated Auntie.

In the comic the Ark was referred to as "the last of the Great Arks" suggesting that, as in the Toon, there had been previous Vanguard-class ships. It is also referred to as the most powerful starship in Cybertron history and control of it was considered a huge tactical advantage.

It was launched to clear a path for the wandering planet Cybertron through an asteroid field. When this was done and her reserves depleted the Decepticons attacked and boarded her. Hoping to end the threat of Megatron forever Optimus Prime PURPOSELY crashed the ship into the passing planet Earth. The Ark crashed into Mount St. Hilary, a volcano located a small distance outside of what would one day become Portland, Oregon.

After the crash some of the Ark's systems still functioned and when they detected the Decepticon Shockwave making planetfall the ship revived 5 of her Autobot crew and rebuilt them into the Dinobots. Upon the disappearance of these warriors in their attempt to destroy Shockwave the Ark shut itself down.

...and as it came to be fairly consistently portrayed as the Comics progressed.

Four million years later, Mount St. Hilary erupted jarring the ship back to life. It revived and, unable to distinguish Autobot from Decepticon or to detect organic life (clearly it had suffered additional malfunctions since creating the Dinobots) it revived both sides to transform into the machines it perceived as the planet's dominant lifeforms.

(Note: At no point in the comics does it explain why the Dinobots were created due to the dominant organic life, and yet it could only assimilate mechanical life in 1984.)

The Ark became the Autobots' main base of operations on Earth until, during Grimlock's first term as Autobot leader, he had the ship repaired and returned to space. The Ark hung around near Earth space for a time, until it was abandoned in orbit when Primus teleported all nearby Transformers back to Cybertron to face Unicron. It was recovered by the Dinobots and flown to Cybertron to engage Unicron. Grimlock, being the master of tactics that he is, physically rammed Unicron with the powerfully armed starship which was then abandoned and crashed on Cybertron. It was recovered this time by Shockwave and Starscream who repaired it and took it to Earth to conquer that planet with it. This plan was foiled by Galvatron, Megatron and Ratchet crashing the party. Their battle caused the ship to crash to Earth again, into the Canadian wilderness.

The Ark's original crew in the comics included of the 1984 Autobots, the Dinobots, Red Alert (in the UK), the recorded mental engrams of most of the other 1985 Autobot cars, and Toaster.

Generation 2 comics

Picking up after the original Marvel comics, this time the Ark was recovered and repaired by Megatron who attempted to take it back to Cybertron and conquer that planet with it. This was foiled by Fortress Maximus and Spike Witwicky who sacrificed their lives to cause an anti-matter explosion that finally destroyed the great ship.

Classics comics

(The Classics comics pick up after the Marvel comics series but ignore the events of the UK books and Generation 2.)

Megatron takes command of the Ark here as well but apparently keeps it (with Ratchet on ice) as his new HQ on Earth.

Beast Wars continuity

Wait a minute. That's not engine exhaust! The Ark is on fire!

The Ark seen in Beast Wars was based visually on the Ark from the Generation 1 cartoon The Agenda, Part 3, however it was officially named "The Ark," retroactively confirming the designation fans had long given it. According to Optimus Primal, the Ark was built using "die-cast" construction, a lost art by the Beast Wars era.

Though Megatron had obstensibly come to prehistoric Earth to look for a massive cache of energon to fuel his war against the Maximal Imperium, he was in reality following instructions recorded by the original Megatron on the Golden Disk from the Voyager Space probe. Once on Earth, he apparently found the crash site of the Ark, but buried the entrance to the interior of the volcano, deeming the plan to destroy the deactivated Autobots aboard her and change the outcome of the Great War, was to be a last-chance gamble should he ever be backed into a corner with little hope of escape. Such a situation came to pass while he was a prisoner aboard Ravage's Transwarp Cruiser, and convinced the former Decepticon to free him by revealing his plan. The Agenda, Part 2

"She may have flaws, but she has teeth"

After failing to destroy the Maximal base, he travelled to the crash site where he forced Blackarachnia to deactivate the security systems of Teletraan-1 and allow him access to the Ark's bridge. Observing that he was walking in the hallowed halls of the past as somebody who was soon to change the very course of history, he flew to the prone form of Optimus Prime and unleashed a torrent of pent-up rage of what he felt was Maximal injustice over the conquered Predacons, before firing at Optimus Prime's head, which created a time storm. The Agenda, Part 3

IDW Beast Wars comics continuity

"Tough little ship." "Little?"

Razorbeast and his small temporally-displaced group travelled to the Maximal encampment in the volcano in order to obtain tools to repair the transwarp signal booster which would hopefully be found in the wreckage of Ravage's transwarp cruiser. Not willing to risk taking something that might be noticed missing from the Axalon's shell, they instead took what they need from the Ark. The Gathering, Part 3

Dreamwave comics continuity

There is some question as to the Ark's appearance in the Dreamwave continuity, as it is never shown in totality in an actual comic story. Pictures are seen in the final issue of their More Than Meets The Eye guide and there it is drawn to look mostly like the cartoon model ( though oddly missing the rear "spoiler"). However the DK Transformers Ultimate Guide, whose main focus was Dreamwave continuity gives a cutaway diagram of the Ark drawn in the Marvel Comics style instead, only colored yellow-gold as in the cartoon.

The Ark was destroyed in 2004 while Ratchet and Brawn countered a Decepticon attack headed by Starscream and Bruticus.

IDW comics continuity

6.2 million meta-cycles ago, the first legendary vessel to be designated as the Ark was launched from Cybertron. Its mission was to plot a safe passage from the Cybertronian Quadrant of the galaxy through the Benzuli Expanse. Twenty-thousand astro-cycles out it disappeared with all hands lost. Over the eras following its loss rumor, myth and legend spun up around the ship obscuring the few existing facts surrounding its fate.

(This Ark appears in the flashbacks to look a bit like a merging of the older cartoon and Marvel Comics designs.)

In the modern era, the Autobots utilized numerous ships designated Ark, each distinguished by a number following the title. Among them were the Ark-19, Ark-27, and Ark-32.

In the present day the fate of the first Ark was one of the big mysteries that Nightbeat liked to dig into in his free time. He eventually got a lead on possible remains of the ship, but it turned out to be a trap specifically set to draw him in. On Gorlam Prime he found wreckage of the correct type and age to come from the ship, and far beneath the surface a vast interdimensional portal. Before he could dig into the mystery even more he was overtaken by a strange group of Transformers who captured him and messed with his head, eventually erasing his memory of being there at all.

Back on his ship, with no memory of what has passed, he received a message from Optimus Prime, to rendezvous with the Ark-32 on route to Earth.

Toys

Titanium Series

Wooosh.

• Autobot Shuttle Ark (3-inch Robot Masters)

The first ever tangible representation of the Ark was a die-cast Titanium figurine at the 3-inch scale. The very forward section was based on the Ark's appearance in the original cartoon, but attached to it is an approximation of the back 2/3s of another space ship, the "Electronic Star Bird" created and sold by Milton Bradley in 1978. [1] Odder yet, the technical information on the back refers to the

Tiny.

Marvel Comics Ark's destruction at the hands of Fortress Maximus, and that Ark, as seen above, does not resemble either the cartoon Ark or this toy at all.

The very forward portion of the Titanium is removable, allowing for a more accurate toy. (Ironically, the most iconic portion of the Ark, the rear engines which were often seen protruding from its rocky resting point on Earth, are not present due to placement of the attachment point.)

Trivia

• An Autobot shuttle featured in Marvel UK's "Space Pirates!" story used the animated series' design for the Ark.
  
  
  From Teletraan I: The Transformers Wiki, a Wikia wiki.