Carcer
- Carcer is a Titan from the IDW portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.
Carcer was one of the Titans created by the legendary Knights of Cybertron to act as a living ship. Unlike many of his siblings, Carcer never actually colonized a planet; permanently transformed into his starship form, he and his occupants chose to live a nomadic life among the stars.
The term for things related to Carcer is Carcerian.
Fiction
IDW Generation 1 continuity
Millions of years ago, Carcer and the other 12 colony Titans departed Cybertron to found new outposts of Cybertronian civilization. First Contact
According to Elita One, as Carcer travelled through space over the eons, a core breach threatened to destroy him. The Titan's captain threw his body into the breach to seal it, beginning a tradition of the crew sacrificing their own bodies to keep their Titan alive as his natural resources diminished. Eventually, Elita One became captain, ruling from a chair composed of the bodies of their colony's greatest heroes- all of whom had given their lives in the service of their ship. The straitened inhabitants learned to value three things above all else: efficiency, security, and truth. The Will of the Few
After Cybertron decided to re-establish contact with its abandoned colonies, the First Titan Metroplex located Carcer with his sensors. First Contact During their climatic battle, Devastator kicked Optimus Maximus through Metroplex's space bridge and onto Carcer's hull, although Optimus quickly rebounded and dived back through to Cybertron. All That Remains Several weeks later, Windblade and Starscream arrived to make formal contact. Metroplex had identified the Titan they were travelling to as Tempo, a Titan crewed by peaceful philosophers, so they were surprised by Carcer's militaristic ways, but Elita claimed that the crew had simply changed the name of their ship from "Tempo" to "Carcer" at some point. Windblade, however, was aware that these were the names of two completely separate Titans, and was concerned with what what this meant Elita must be hiding.
After some political wrangling, the two ambassadors were able to convince Carcer to join the Council of Worlds; they chose to send Strika and Obsidian as ambassadors. The Will of the Few
Even after the formation of the Council of Worlds, Elita decided that the current political situation on Cybertron was too fractured and dangerous for her crew, and chose to keep the vast majority of her troops aboard ship. Applicable Skills Carcer's crew was able to start ordering parts from Cybertron to begin fully repairing their Titan. The repair schedule suffered interference from a mnemosurgical attack on a Decepticon part supplier, prompting Elita One via Obsidian to demand Council investigation into the crime spree. 07:00:00
When a horde of dead Titans, raised by Sentinel Prime in order to raze Cybertron, began showing up on Carcer's sensors, Lancer and Greenlight reported the news to Elita One. As the Titans began arriving on Cybertron, Strika lead Carcer's crew in a valiant battle to defend Cybertron, admonishing them that they could not let the Titans take their ship. As the battle wore on, however, Metroplex began to become overwhelmed by his zombified bretheren, prompting Starscream to contact Elita and ask for Carcer's help. Not understanding that Cybertron's leader wanted Carcer's physical help, she replied that her people were eliminating a good portion of the threatening Titans before they even hit the surface. She listened as Starscream explained that he needed Carcer to come to the surface and transform into his robot mode (in order to aid Metroplex). Elita then politely refused, wished Starscream well, and shut off her comm line. Ping
As Carcer's crew battled the undead Titans, Starscream again contacted Elita One and asked for Carcer's help. Elita made it very clear to Starscream that regardless of any situation that may occur, even if they both perished and the galaxy went down in flames, Carcer would never again transform. Regrouping back at the Spire, Windblade, Starscream and the rest of the Council delegates (minus Strika and Obsidian, naturally) talked things over, and Windblade came up with a desperate, last ditch plan: the group would invade Carcer, under cover, and Windblade would merge with him and explain the situation in hopes that he'd take it upon himself to transform and defend Cybertron. To cover Windblade's approach, the remaining ships in orbit were directed to attack Carcer directly, and Devastator was deployed to draw the bulk of the Carcerians' troops, giving Windblade and her team a hopefully clearer path to Carcer's brain chamber. Desperate Times A running battle ensued as Windblade and her team struggled to elude Obsidian and Elita One. Windblade managed to establish a cityspeaker link with Carcer's brain module... only to discover that it belonged to a completely different Titan: Vigilem! Desperate Measures
Notes
- "Carcer" is Latin for "prison", which raises a lot of questions about Carcer and its inhabitants.
