Institute

The Institute is an institution from the IDW portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.

He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Convoy.

Before the Great War, the Institute was a rumor whose very existence was, to many, suspect. How could there actually be a laboratory dedicated to rewriting Transformers' minds - dabbling in the forbidden science known as shadowplay? But for many, it is a name whispered in fearful tones - the kind of place where out-of-line mechs might get 'disappeared' to, to have their loyalty coefficient brought back into lockstep with the desires of the Senate.

Rational-minded Transformers dismiss the entire notion as nothing more than a hallucination of the paranoid. But those rational minds might want to reconsider...

Fiction

IDW Generation 1 continuity

Before the war, an acquaintance of Orion Pax within the Senate feared that Orion could get sent to the Institute as punishment for interrupting a Senate session. Chaos Theory Part 2 Around the same time, Tumbler likewise noted that dissenters from the official government line were likely to get sent to the Institute. Though Prowl dismissed the entire notion of the Institute with a derisive phht, Tumbler was fascinated by the idea of the place, regardless of whether or not it was real. Post Hoc

While on a mission to track down a murderer, Tumbler and Prowl were given a tipoff by Red Alert, the security guard at Translucentica Heights: a robot that, unknown to then, had been mind-altered by the Institute to nudge them in the 'right' direction. The cops turned out to be too good though and tracked the murderers to a Relinquishment Clinic. Once inside, the duo were shocked to find much more than mere bodyswapping going on. They found an entire laboratory complex below the clinic, filled with technicians working on dozens of Transformer brains, and equipment dedicated to imprisonment and worse: magnetic circuit slabs, and a room full of Empties with hollowed-out heads. It was immediately obvious to Tumbler that they were in fact inside the fabled Institute. Hacking the lab's computer, Tumbler found a list of thousands of names organized by "threat level". Patternism

What neither they nor Orion Pax realized was that the very name "the Institute" was sleight of hand: it made people think there was just one, not a whole network! In time, every Relinquishment Clinic would turn out to have an Institute under it and that was only part of it. Senator Shockwave would be a victim of the Institute, deliberately turned into an emotionless husk as an act of petty revenge. An Intimate Beheading

Years later, after the fall of the Senate, the restructuring of Cybertroninan society under Zeta Prime, and the outbreak of the Great War, the Institute continued to operate in secret, rebranded as the New Institute, used by Zeta to brainwash both captured Decepticons and to keep Autobots with wavering loyalties in line. Though Zeta would soon be slain by Megatron, his "New Institite" would persist long after this death, still operated by the Autobots well into the war. It is unclear if there were ever multiple "New Institutes"; the only confirmed facility was hidden beneath a patch of wasteland, protected by a veritable army of Guardian droids. This facility's staff included Tumbler, who lobotomized thousands with his mnemosurgical skills earning the name "Chromedome" in the process, and Brainstorm, who were both present when Overlord attacked it to rescue Soundwave. Remembrance Day Evidence suggests Highbrow was also a member. The Reluctant Specialist Rules of Disengagement Evidence also suggests that Cerebros worked there as well but was not a mnemosurgeon. Ten to Midnight

Six months before Declaration Day, Red Alert sought out the rational-minded psychiatrist Rung. He regarded Red Alert's mentions of the Institute as a sure sign of a paranoid personality disorder, apparently unaware that the Institute really exists. Interiors Millions of years later, Highbrow, Chromedome and Brainstorm were vague about their old job when talking to Tailgate. The Reluctant Specialist

Autobot Special Operations would use ex-New Institute technology: the nudge gun, one charge that fires a thought into a target's mind and a second that blanks out any incriminating memories. Arm the Lonely When examining the exploded remains of Skids' nudge gun, Brainstorm could recognise it as Institute technology but didn't know what it was. Rules of Disengagement

Notes

• In an interview (17:40 - 18:25), James Roberts said that Transformers with head-based names all worked for, or were believed to work for, the Institute and were nicknamed appropriately. (And that's why the Headmaster toys have heady names despite not being Headmasters in IDW continuity!) Roberts went on to confirm that Highbrow worked there but that Hardhead didn't, he just has a hard head.
• At 57:00 in the same interview, Roberts implies that the Institute had a reason for 'getting' Red Alert and used him for more than just the one plot.