The Transformers Trilogy

The "Keepers Trilogy" is set of Transformers novels set in Dreamwave's version of Generation One continuity family.

Cover of the 2004 omnibus Hardcover (SFBC exclusive)

In 2003, capitalizing on the recent success of the Dreamwave Transformers comic book Prime Directives (#1 in sales for the year,) iBooks released a trilogy of Transformers novels.

• Hardwired by Scott Ciencin
• Annihilation by David Cian
• Fusion by David Cian

The three books form a continuous narrative that takes place in the missing year betwen Prime Directives and Dreamwave's follow-up miniseries War and Peace.

All 3 novels were collected into a hardbound omnibus in 2004 for the Science Fiction Book Club.

The short story Two for the Price of One by Brandie Tarvin in the 2004 anthology Transformers Legends seems to be set in the same continuity. Ironically, since this story takes place after Megatron's return to power, which had just started when Dreamwave went belly-up, it represents the latest known point on the Dreamwave continuity timeline.

Events of the Keepers Trilogy

Hardwired

Seeking to repair their relationship with humanity after the disaster in California, the Autobots Optimus Prime, Jazz, and Bluestreak are in Tokyo, Japan for a meet-and-greet. Their event is interrupted by Megatron, and a battle wages until a mysterious force suddenly strikes the city streets, spiriting away the four Transformers and over 200 humans present.

In their absence, Starscream makes his bid for leadership of the Decepticons. He begins by destroying Sideswipe in an aerial duel, then gathers all the Decepticons who will follow him in assuming control of the human city of Las Vegas. Rather than outright conquering the town, Starscream instead makes a deal with the humans, offering them advanced technology, protection, and even the opportunity to make loads of cash starring in their own Reality TV stories about the occupation. The humans largely accept and, with few other options available to them, the American government reluctantly cedes the city to Decepticon control. Not willing to allow Starscream to consolidate a power base for himself, Bumblebee and Prowl join forces with the renegade Grimlock and his secret army of human allies to take back Vegas.

Meanwhile, Spike Witwicky is approached by a clandestine figure named Franklin Townsend, who claimed to represent the NSA. Franklin informs Spike that he "of interest" to certain underground parties (including the zealous Transformers groupie cult known as the Followers), and that his help is needed on matters of national security. He also informs Spike that his family has been placed in protective custody to ensure their safety from these dangerous individuals, but is none too subtle in implying that their safety is entirely contingent on Spike's cooperation. Franklin reveals he is an augment, one of a select group of human cyborgs that have been enhanced by Transformer technology. Their first stop is to see a naval officer named Hugo Fortuna, who recently reported seeing a phenomena much like the one in Tokyo, and Franklin sends Spike in first as bait to confront the man about what he knows. The officer tries to kill Spike almost on sight instead, and is executed in a murder-suicide by a traitor in Franklin's team before he can explain why. Franklin and Spike find a massive collection of Transformer artifacts in the man's basement as well.

Optimus Prime and the others are, of course, not dead. Instead, they have been transported across the known galaxies by a race of seemingly all-powerful beings known as the Keepers, who apparently wish to study them and their reactions to stimuli. The Transformers are forced to fight opponents in arena style combat, with the human captives' lives at sake if they refuse. Among the battles, Optimus Prime is compeled to execute a helpless opponent, and later confronts a recreation of his own predecessor, Sentinel Prime; Jazz is forced into killing Bluestreak in single combat; and Megatron fights a series of matches against various alien opponents. Megatron initially believes he has entered into an alliance with the Keepers, but soon realizes they have no intention of keeping their bargain with him.

Back on Earth, Spike and Franklin continue their search for answers. They come to realize that Spike contains information in his mind from a time years ago when he was briefly transplanted into the body of Transformer. The details of this information are vague at best, but seems to be highly valuable to the Followers. On the other side was Fortuna and his group of "Anti-Followers", who wish to kill Spike before the information in his brain can be harvested. A group of augments attempt to assassinate the pair, but Spike's latent knowledge enables him to completely disable the cyborgs. Franklin then decides they need to head for Las Vegas, following a signal that was being beamed at the augments during the skirmish.

All roads lead to Vegas. Grimlock and his allies battle the Constructicons on the outskirts of the city, and begin moving inwards to confront more Decepticons. Spike and Franklin are picked up trying to enter the city by Followers working for Darren Norbert, who apparently made some sort of deal with the Keepers allowing them to snatch the Transformers from Tokyo in the first place. He taunts Spike with the gateway key briefly before the battle between the Autobots and Decepticons reaches his penthouse, and Darren is killed by flying debris, allowing Spike to retrieve the key.

In the Keepers' realm, Megatron and the Autobots have joined forces to save the remaining humans from the Keepers' games. In order to secure Megatron's cooperation, Prime is forced to grant Megatron a favor to be named at a later date. The Transformers learn that the Keepers, who had previously seemed to be merely bodiless voices, were actually leviathan sized techno-organics creatures. The conflict with the Keepers grows fierce, and Optimus Prime begins to unleash the power of the Creation Matrix, in an effort to destroy the Keepers' stronghold and all of them with it. Before this suicidal ploy can be completed, the gateway back to Earth opens, and Optimus returns to the human planet with the others. Unfortunately, the Keepers travel to Earth as well, including one who has taken Bluestreak's corpse as a host body.

Annihilation

Prime bargains for Megatron's cooperation, at a price to be named later, and the abducted Transformers are able to escape back to Earth - but the Keepers follow, threatening to destroy the planet. The President nukes Las Vegas to be rid of them, but Prime uses the Matrix to send both the Keepers and the missile to another dimension. The threat momentarily averted, Megatron names the price for his cooperation - the Matrix.

Fusion

Though absolute disaster was narrowly averted, the Keepers' allies on Earth attempt to open a gateway to bring them back. Intrigue abounds between the American government, Transformers enthusiasts, and secret societies to determine who will possess the manifold advantages of alien technology.

Characters

The Keeper's trilogy pioneered the use of fake-sounding names, which would later be used in IDW's Infiltration series.

Listed in order of appearance

• Isolde Holden
• Hugo Fortuna
• Franklin Townsend
• Candyce Simmons
• Chris Killah
• Joe Chuckry
• Tom Hyroon
• Rhona Jay
• Iolus Monk
• Craig
• Janie Whitmore
• Paul Whitmore
• Hendry Whitmore
• Paul Charteris
• Wendy
• Melony Dodds/Harcourt
• Vic Mellors
• Vern Fox
• Antoine Debussy
• Dave Langer
• Ben Fellows
• Paul Buckley
• Joe Torres
• Ryan O'Brien
• Ginny O'Brien
• Butch
• Phil Brodaker

• Glynnis
• Kimberly
• Jamal
• Bethann

• Buckingham
• Bernie Kalus
• Father Simon
• Jenny Dodds/Harcourt
• Chuck “Chubby” Cherwonowitz
• Darren Norbert
• Sheila Thompsom
• John Kelly
• Carl Lomax
• Allister Greaves
• Stuckey
• Elisa
• William Backes
• Captain Wolfe
• Betsy
• James
• Christoff
• Michelle Grajkowski
• Susan
• John
• Bill
• Captain Andrews

Oddities/Errors

While the nuclear explosion in Prime Directives took place in San Francisco, the Keepers Trilogy moves it to Los Angeles for no apparent reason.

Fan Reaction

Most Transformers fans were disappointed by these novels.

Scott Ciencin (writer of the first book and part of the second, though uncredited) left many readers cold with a mix of sex, gore (Her severed spine jutted from her torso, and entrails uncoiled and slowly snaked out from her body, slippery and eager to stretch out and relax.) and faux-edgy pop culture references. In addition, Ciencin's actual knowledge of Transformers was visibly limited, consisting of what appeared to be hasty perusals of some sources - his description of Bumblebee, for instance, was clearly derived from a cursory glance at his Marvel Transformers Universe profile, presenting him to be blue and yellow (a result of the limited colour palette of the comics), rather than the correct black and yellow. Energon is described as a silvery-gold liquid (before the Energon series depicted it as such), and presented as the power source of the Matrix.

David Cian's half of the trilogy, which dropped the shock tactics and seemed better-researched, was much more positively received.

The Trilogy takes much of its tone from the first Dreamwave miniseries Prime Directives, which was also featured gratuitous gore, nuclear missiles, government conspiracies, a vague sense that Transformers had little sense of free will, and an angsty, indecisive Optimus Prime under the illusion he's engaged in a cosmic struggle of robot vs self. He uses the Matrix twice.

The Keepers baffled fans by being extremely, extremely similar to the Quintessons in method, technology, outlook, relationship to the Transformers, and (to some degree) appearance. Ciencin seems to have simply been unaware of the Quintessons' existence when he created them.

On the positive note; the Keepers Trilogy is one of the few stories to explore the long-term impact of Transformers' interaction with human society.

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