Ore-13

"These Rubik's Cubes just keep getting more and more difficult."

Ultra-Energon, known to Earth-based Transformers as Ore-13 or Regenesis ore, is an artificial substance created by the Decepticon scientist Shockwave, and seeded by him on a number of other alien worlds, of which Earth was the only one to be stabilised.

As found on Earth, Ore-13 can be purified, in the words of Ratchet, into "... baseline energon, but with a twist. When applied directly to the systems of a Transformer via a modified delivery capsule, it grants that Transformer a phenomenal boost in overall capability."

Fiction

IDW Generation 1 continuity

During the Great War, Shockwave extrapolated that the war would eventually devolve into a struggle over resources. In response, he developed the Regenesis project, seeding a number of worlds with a potent distillation of standard energon. The seedings were designed to initiate a chain reaction which would produce Ultra-Energon ore in plentiful supply, giving him the balance of power when the Energon shortages he had foreseen became inevitable.

Hundreds of thousands of years later, Shockwave abandoned the Decepticons and he headed to Earth, arriving at the end of the last Ice Age, to continue the plan by stabilizing the ore before it destroyed the planet. However, before he could finish the process, he was ambushed by the Dynobots and left buried by a failsafe Grimlock had arranged, that triggered a volcanic eruption in what would be later Nevada. Spotlight: Shockwave

When Shockwave's absence was discovered by Megatron, he assigned Bludgeon to investigate Shockwave's plans, and Soundwave to spy on Bludgeon in turn. While Bludgeon discovered the full extent of Shockwave's plans he fed little of it back to Megatron—and Soundwave did likewise. Spotlight: Soundwave

Around ten thousand years later, Cybertron was devastated by Thunderwing and left uninhabitable. Stormbringer Some time later, however, Bludgeon and his team returned to the planet in secret to begin work on restoring Thunderwing, and in preparation for creating their own bio-grafted exo-shells. To do this, they needed power, and so they proceeded to Earth in the early 1980s to mine "Ultra-Energon". Spotlight: Soundwave

Eventually, they succeeded in restoring Thunderwing with the Ultra-Energon. Soon, the drawback of the powerful substance became clear: The infused Transformer was rendered far more powerful than ever, but the Ultra-Energon burned itself out far faster than normal energon, and the more power the Transformer drew on, the faster his super-powered "high" burnt away.

In the meantime, the presence of Ultra-Energon had been independently discovered back on Earth by a Decepticon infiltration team led by Starscream. It was dubbed Ore-13. After exhausting a vein of the ore beneath the original command bunker in Nebraska, Starscream built a second command bunker over a richer vein in Oregon. Although it was not enough to give Starscream any appreciable edge over Megatron, both Decepticons and Autobots believed Ore-13 could drastically tip the balance of their entire interstellar conflict. Infiltration

After Optimus Prime's arrival on Earth, he battled the Ore-13-enhanced Megatron and was nearly deactivated, surviving only by downloading his consciousness into his trailer section. However, realizing that Ore-13 was Ultra-Energon, he communicated its weakness to the other Autobots, who successfully ran Megatron down until Prime could return to his body to deliver a coup de grâce just as the Ultra-Energon high faded away. Retrieved by Skywarp, Megatron proceeded to purge his systems completely of the Ultra-Energon in a CR chamber. Escalation

The forces of the Dead Universe specifically protected Earth from the Reapers Devastation due to its Ultra-Energon; their grand scheme was reliant on vast amounts of the energy, in which Earth was now rich. Spotlight: Doubledealer

A few years later, Shockwave used Ultra-Energon to build a new body for Megatron. Revenge of the Decepticons Part 5: Enemy Mine

Animated cartoon

Bulkhead compares Ultra-Energon to candy. The AllSpark Almanac