Star Harvester

"Harvester" redirects here. For the machines that collected Tranformer bodies for the smelting pool in Marvel Comics, see harvester unit.

A solar harvester is a piece of technology from the live-action film continuity family.

And no one on earth noticed this for millions of years.

When the All Spark runs low on energy, only the destruction of a star can replenish it. In order to harness the power of stars, workers in service to the All Spark built solar harvesters.

Fiction

IDW Transformers movie comics

In the distant past, the mysterious relic known as the All Spark cube created life on the planet Cybertron and terraformed its surface to make the world suitable for habitation for its creations. However, this effort depleted the All Spark, and the power from a star was the one thing that could re-energize it. The cube created a servant race of transforming workers who would seek out stars and build devices called solar harvesters to aid in collecting the solar energy.

One "Seeker" discovered a suitable star for this purpose and led his masters and the builders to the third planet of its star system. The builders constructed the harvester and prepared to drain the Sun's energy, but it was discovered that this world contained life. Twelve of the thirteen master beings refused to utilize the harvester, for the process would destroy this world. Unfortunately, the remaining being felt no such obligation to protect life and merely wanted all of the All Spark's energy for himself. His twelve brothers gave their lives to seal him in his own sarcophagus, and the harvester was hidden by the native sentient inhabitants.

Thousands of years later, Decepticons under the command of Soundwave arrived on Earth in search of the harvester. Defiance #4

Revenge of the Fallen movie

The Seven Primes came to Earth around 17,000 BC. Although they had sworn never to take a life in their pursuit of energon, one of their kind hated the human inhabitants of the planet and was going to activate the solar harvester until his brothers stopped him by stealing the Matrix of Leadership needed to power it. They sealed it in a tomb made of their own bodies.

In 2009 AD, The Fallen Prime returned to Earth, seeking to use his machine two years after the All Spark's apparent destruction. Sam Witwicky uncovered the tomb and recovered the Matrix, which he intended to use to resurrect Optimus Prime, the only one who could kill The Fallen. Devastator excavated the harvester from the Great Pyramid of Giza before he was destroyed, and The Fallen snatched the Matrix to activate his machine: but Optimus had returned, and combined with Jetfire to destroy the harvester. Revenge of the Fallen

Notes

• Yeah, it's the same idea as the Generation 1 cartoon's Solar Needle. That doesn't make it a reference!
• This device potentially makes the Transformers a Type II or even Type III civilization on the Kardashev scale.