Transformers: Exodus

War for Cybertron »
Apparently the war for Cybertron is all Sideways' fault. Fitting!
Transformers: Exodus: The Official History of the War for Cybertron
Publisher	Del Rey Books
First published	June 22, 2010
Writer	Alexander C. Irvine
Continuity	Unknown (see Notes)
ISBN	ISBN 034551985X ISBN 978-0345519856
Page count	288
Price	$27.00 USD $32.00 CAD

The relationship between Orion Pax and Megatron before the war is explored. Also, enjoy meeting one of the original 13 Transformers.

Synopsis

Cybertron's once-mighty civilization is in a period of stasis and decadence. The bygone ages of space exploration and building relations with other forms of life are all but forgotten, the space bridges having all gone offline through sabotage or millennia of neglect. The architecture of ancient cities such as Iacon display a boldness and dynamism absent from modern structures and, indeed, from most of Cybertronian life. As soon as every Cybertronian emerges from the Well of AllSparks (in which resides the AllSpark itself, the device that physically creates them) they are assigned to a caste and guild from which they may never deviate throughout their lifetimes--and even this process has lost its grandeur over the eons, with the newly-sparked no longer expected to make a death-defying run through the primordial monsters' den of Underworld. There is no opportunity for change or personal growth. Some are born to lead, others are civil servants, and those of the lowest castes--manual laborers in the underground mines and factories--don't even have names.

Understanding that the social hierarchy instils tensions that must be relieved somehow, the High Council turns a blind eye to the proliferation of underground gladiatorial combat. Over these brutal deathmatches, the laborer caste rallies around a charismatic and seemingly unstoppable iconic figure who--acting beyond his natural station--has taken a name, and not just any name but that of one of the original 13 Transformers, the powerful and sinister Megatronus. In the cheers of his adoring fans this name gets shortened to Megatron, and the new form sticks.

Orion Pax, a data clerk who feels dissatisfied with the caste system, is assigned to eavesdrop on Megatron's political speeches and file them appropriately for the High Council's knowledge. Megatron's stated goals of a free Cybertron, with each individual determining his own path in life, is highly appealing to Orion. Confused, Orion turns to guidance to his supervisor and mentor, Alpha Trion.... who, unbeknownst to Orion and everyone else still alive, is the last surviving member of the original 13 Transformers. As the scribe of past, present, and future, Alpha Trion knows that some great destiny awaits both Megatron and Orion Pax, but does not know what it is. Speaking cryptically to his younger colleague, Alpha Trion encourages Orion Pax to monitor this new upstart.

Orion makes contact with Megatron's fledgling organization, in the process enjoying his little tastes of breaking rules and acting beyond the normal limits of his station. The two find broad agreement in the need for a new form of Cybertronian government, though Megatron favors confrontation and revolution whereas Orion hopes to inspire the masses to change the system from within. The two also engage in nonstop verbal sparring and (would-be) witty repartee. Megatron's team includes the devious spymaster Soundwave and his army of Minicons, and the amoral mad scientist Shockwave.

When Orion vocally defends Megatron in a dispute on the Cybertronian datanet, he inadvertantly "outs" himself as being part of the organization and is soon viewed as just as much a revolutionary. As their movement gains power, it also grows more violent: saboteurs professing allegiance to Megatron commit multiple bombings across the planet, including destroying the Six Lasers Over Cybertron amusement park. Megatron repeatedly (and seemingly quite earnestly) swears not to know who committed these crimes and disavows them. But he cannot hide his own involvement from the kidnapping of Sentinel Prime--carried out with cooperation from Sentinel's own Seeker bodyguards.

Chief among these bodyguards is Starscream, who is disgusted by Sentinel's show of cowardice during the kidnapping but still resents the upending of his past secure position due to Megatron's actions. He flirts with joining Megatron's forces, but also makes sure to dispatch all his loyal Seekers to Trypticon Station--a floating strategic asset bearing a powerful secret that he understands and that Megatron, for the moment, does not.

In the hopes of preventing all-out war, Alpha Trion helps Orion and Megatron secure an audience before the High Council in order to plead their case. The Council members are hostile from the start to any notion of change and view Megatron as nothing but a criminal; for his part, Megatron continues to disown most (but not all) of the violence being committed in his name but continues to call for the total removal of the caste system, including the Council itself. His words feed on the resentment of the underclasses in his audience, and his followers begin to chant the name "Decepticon" after a violent cult from the misty reaches of Cybertronian history. When it is Orion's turn to speak, by contrast, he makes a more noble appeal to the broader spectrum of society, speaking of their fuller potential as a race if each individual were to be acknowledged as an autonomous robot--and he coins the term "Autobot" as an expression of that ideal. High Council member Halogen at last speaks, and he grants that the two radicals might have a point, and that Cybertronian society might have become too static and stratified for its own good. Recognizing the depth of the crisis that their world faces, Halogen asserts that what they need is new visionary leadership to guide a social rebirth--and on that note, the Council proclaims Orion Pax to now be Optimus Prime, the new leader of all Cybertron, with his first mission being the retrieval of the near-mystical Matrix of Leadership.

Megatron is livid at the elevation of his former colleague, believing it to have been a set-up from Orion all along. He kills Halogen at once, but as both sides marshal for war Optimus is at least able to convince Megatron--in perhaps a final gesture of respect for civilization--not to commit further violence within the Council halls. Instead the two sides retreat.... with High Council members Contrail and Ratbat aligning with Megatron's Decepticons.

The war that follows is brutal and largely one-sided. The Autobots retain control of Iacon, and also Kalis and the key asset of its underground fusion reactor that powers their war effort; the Decepticons take over practically the rest of the planet. Autobot special teams such as the Wreckers (led by the mighty hammer-bearing warrior Ultra Magnus) manage to hold their own against hulking Decepticon combiners such as Devastator. Some battle sites, such as Praxis, are so thoroughly devastated that the dead can never be counted and no one will ever know who won. Out of desperation, the Autobots launch the AllSpark into space to keep Megatron from gaining control of the source of Transformer life. It is in that battle that Bumblebee has his vocal circuits painfully destroyed.

Seeking a new advantage, Megatron orders Starscream to give him access to the secret of Trypticon Station: its stockpile of Dark Energon, the power-enhancing evil essence of Unicron himself. Megatron's "darkened" Decepticons now have a combat edge necessary to overwhelm the struggling Autobots. To accelerate the process, Megatron seeks control of the Plasma Energy Chamber, which would allow him to use his Dark Energon supplies to turn the energon core of Cybertron into an unlimited font of the foul substance--both permanently empowering his own forces while starving the Autobots to death. But in order to activate the Plasma Energy Chamber, he needs to acquire the Key of Justice and the Key of Power. He eventually acquires both--one of them was stored inside Sentinel Prime's chest, and Megatron resolved that problem by defeating the former leader in combat and hacking him apart.

Before Megatron can fully activate the Plasma Energy Chamber, the Autobots use their last known advantage by reactivating Cybertron's long-disused ultimate guardian, Omega Supreme. Just by transforming from city mode to rocketship mode, Omega nearly crushes Megatron and the Decepticons to death, and after a successful takeoff it almost seems like he would be able to fly the Plasma Energy Chamber to safety. But Starscream and his Seekers manage to shoot down the colossal craft, and at the crater of its impact neither the Autobots nor even Omega Supreme's robot mode can prove to be a match with a Dark Energon-empowered Megatron. Omega Supreme is defeated and Megatron acquires the Plasma Energy Chamber. Ratchet manages to save Omega's life--barely--but nothing can stop Megatron from tainting the core of Cybertron.

Optimus and the Autobots (including Jetfire and Bumblebee) struggle their way to the core, avoiding infection by Dark Energon along the way. Once at the core, Bumblebee manages to extract the Plasma Energy Chamber and Optimus receives a mental communication from the core itself. Now that the source of Dark Energon contamination has been removed, the core will eventually be able to heal itself.... but that may take centuries, and during that time the core will not be able to generate enough energon to sustain the full Cybertronian population. Most Cybertronians will have to either abandon the planet until it heals, or risk starvation. To show him not to lose hope, the core bestows upon Optimus Prime the Matrix of Leadership.

Seeing that the planet will soon be uninhabitable, Optimus orders a mass evacuation of the Autobot fleet--but most of the ships are shot down by Trypticon Station. One Autobot vessel, the Eight Track, is able to link up to Trypticon Station and force it to crash.... whereupon the station transforms into a bipedal reptilian monster and goes on a rampage.

Alpha Trion grows ever more despairing for the planet he has tended for unimaginable millennia, and puts into place a radical plan: the construction of the largest spaceship in Cybertronian history, the Ark, on which most of the Autobots may escape. Ultra Magnus, his Wreckers, and a rebuilt Omega Supreme volunteer to stay behind and see to what little territory the Autobots still hold. Despite Optimus' strong wishes, Alpha Trion refuses to leave Cybertron and declares the time has come for his old friend to truly make his old command decisions without the advice from a bygone era.

As most of the Autobots flee the planet aboard the Ark, Megatron commands Trypticon to transform into a Nemesis-class supercruiser in which he and most of the Decepticons will give pursuit. Megatron leaves Shockwave behind as dictator of the dying planet, with orders that he is to have exterminated all remaining Autobots by the time Megatron returns. With Nemesis in hot pursuit, the Ark makes for the only possible avenue of survival: the last intact spacebridge, for which there is no guarantee the artifact will even function as none alive know how to use it. But as the two giant spaceships get within range of the spacebridge, it does indeed activate and teleport them.... somewhere.

Aboard the Ark, in a strange and uncharted sea of stars and with no Decepticons in sight, Prowl informs Optimus Prime that the has picked up the energy signature of the AllSpark. And so the search begins....

Featured characters

• Orion Pax/Optimus Prime
• Megatron
• Alpha Trion
• Jazz
• Sentinel Prime
• Starscream
• Omega Supreme

Errors

• Early on Bruticus Maximus and Onslaught are referred to as "Constructicons." The Constructicons here are a larger team than normal, but given that this description shortly follows a paragraph talking about definite actual Constructicons and that the Combaticons team name IS mentioned later, this seems a likely typo/error.

Notes

• Transformers: Exodus has been confirmed to tie-in with the Transformers: War for Cybertron video game and is partially adapted into IDW's War for Cybertron comic.

• Despite this intended tie-in, the stories of Exodus and War for Cybertron are completely incompatible, other than sharing a MacGuffin and some set pieces. Even the name of the Prime before Optimus differs between the two. (Sentinel versus Zeta.)

• The synopsis boldly declares "everything that happened before Optimus and Megatron arrived on planet Earth—has always been a mystery", which is a bit of a fib: various Marvel UK strips since the 80s (especially 1986's State Games), several cartoon episodes, and reams of Dreamwave and IDW comics have been set pre-Earth. Two recent stories set in the past, Megatron Origin and The War Within, appear to be contributing elements (Megs as a working class rebel gladiator and Optimus as a former data clerk, respectively), while Megatron founding the Decepticons due to his gladiatorial fame comes from State Games and previous stories have implied a corrupt or weak pre-war government.

• Apparently, the Fallen's original name (according to this book) is Megatronus Prime, presumably where Megatron himself got his name. In most fictions, The Fallen's name was lost to history, or changed. Jetfire states in Revenge of the Fallen that after one of the Primes (the one who would become the Fallen) betrayed them, "His name forevermore was The Fallen."

External links

• Amazon.com page
• Random House page